Of Locker Notes & Shakespeare Quotes
by PaperSky95
Summary: Percy's the new kid at CHB and he's failing...epically. That is, until Annabeth, his new tutor, comes along to help. But between her boyfriend and his dismal understanding of the written word, can they manage to get through the school year alive?ALL HUMAN
1. Nope, he's my boyfriend

Note: My attempt at a PJO cliche. I hope I do Rick Riordan's characters justice ;) Get ready for a dark and twisty ride with a few bumps of fluff on the way so...LET'S DO THIS!

**A PROLOGUE OF SORTS**

Sea green eyes stared haplessly at the crisp, off-white pages of the textbook that lay despondent on his table. The words blurred out of focus as his mind wandered, filling with more interesting, less grammatically challenging thoughts. Maybe the cafeteria was serving pizza for lunch today? Fat chance of that happening, he mused to himself. Not only did his new school have a harsher curriculum, they also firmly believed that all food deemed 'unhealthy' was banned from the premises. Pity, he could use a Dr. Pepper right about now...

"Mr. Jackson?"

"Huh?" Percy replied articulately. Embarrassment tinged his cheeks as he recognized his teacher's quipped voice. Hurriedly glancing back down to read a sentence off his text he gulped, Shakespeare never made sense to him. Had she asked him a question or something? "Um...yes?"

Sighing, Ms. Poly M. Nia the Literature teacher turned to the rest of her class and motioned for them to leave for lunch. "Ms. Chase, could I have a word with you?"

Percy inched his books and binder slowly towards himself. Maybe Ms. Nia would be too preoccupied with bashing Annabeth and forget about him? Come to think of it, what problem would the teacher have with one of the biggest bookworms in class?

"Mr. Jackson this concerns you as well," Ms. Nia declared to the still seated boy as Annabeth navigated through chairs and tables. "About your current marks in my class..."

Oh great, the try-harder-in-my-class-I-know-you-can-do-better speech.

"You don't seem to be improving so I've come up with a solution for your predicament," she continued, forgoing any niceties or preamble. Well, the bluntness was kind of refreshing. Ms. Nia waited for Annabeth to come closer before adding, "I'm assigning you a peer tutor. Ms. Chase would be delighted to help you through the wonders of the written art."

"Peer tutor?" Percy choked out. She was kidding right? His grades weren't _that_ bad were they?

"I'm sure the two of you will make this arrangement work," she said as she herded them towards the door. "Ms. Chase this will count as extra credit and will raise your average up significantly. That is, if you can get Mr. Jackson to improve in his studies. Well, that's all I wanted to talk to you two about. Go on, it's time for lunch."

And with that they were shoved out of the room.

Annabeth sighed deeply as she hefted her bag up. She ran a hand through her tousled blonde ponytail before fixing Percy with an exasperated stare. "I guess we're stuck together then."

"Yeah," he mumbled back. "So...how do you want to do this? Are we meeting up after school?"

"Not today, I'm meeting up with someone important," she replied as they walked towards their lockers.

"Ok then, what about tomorrow?" Percy offered, remembering that they had a test on 'significant symbolisms' coming up.

"Can't," she answered. She chewed on her bottom lip, as if she was mulling something over in her head, before adding. "Actually, I'm pretty much tied up for this entire week."

What? But it the test was on Monday! That was only three days away...and that was _including_ the weekend! Deciding to be civil about it, Percy nodded in strained nonchalance. "That's okay, I guess I'll just grit my way through the next test like I always do."

"Great," she murmured, stormy gray eyes clouding over. "Though Ms. Nia will probably be expecting some kind of improvement by then. Sorry, but just do the best you can; I'll go over everything with you when I'm free."

Percy groaned silently... a few more hours of poring over Sparknotes and staring at his copy of Idiot's Guide to Shakespeare, just perfect. "So what's got you so busy anyway?"

"Someone's visiting," Annabeth chirped, a smile spreading on her face. "I haven't seen him in almost three months now."

"Oh, an old friend of yours?" Percy asked as they paused at a fork in the hall. His locker was down one end and hers in the other.

"Nope, he's my boyfriend."

* * *

Note: Whatcha all think? Please don't give up on this story yet PERCABETH-ers! They'll get together...eventually. Reviews are loved~ cya all next week!


	2. Oh, teasing him was always fun

Note: Early update this week 'cause I've got no school this Friday :D

**SO WE MEET A FEW PEOPLE**

"Percy?"

"Ngghhh..."

"Perrrrcy, wake up!"

"Alas...," the raven haired teen mumbled groggily, face down on the table. "...I'm a lady friendless."

Grover Underwood frowned openly at the sleeping youth in front of him as he scratched absentmindedly at the coarse stubble on his chin. He just couldn't figure out why Percy always decided to study in the library when all he did was fall asleep. Taking a deep breath, Grover gripped the wooden broom he was holding and took a swing.

_WHACK!_

"AHH!" Percy screamed, in a _very_ manly fashion, as he was whacked out of his seat. Multicoloured pens and sticky notes clattered to the ground while Percy groaned dejectedly. Not bothering to get up, he stayed half on the floor and half on his chair as stared up his friend's slightly bearded face. "What was _that_ for?"

"Sorry," Grover apologized, scooping up fallen school supplies as Percy slid into an Indian sit. "But the library's closing and you're the last to leave again."

"Already? But it's still so early," he commented, leaning his head against a table leg. "I haven't finished my extra credit work yet..."

"Extra credit?" the older man asked as he squinted at Percy's haphazard annotations. "So I guess your quiz didn't go so well."

"Nope," the teen answered as he got to his feet and packed up. "I bombed. It was especially sad this time because Ms. Nia just spent the entire time breathing down my neck and 'expecting improvement'"

"Oh...well at least you got can make up for it!"

"Let's not talk about it," Percy said miserably, sweeping his things into the gaping maw of his sea-green backpack. He'd spent the better part of his weekend staring at the abysmally few notes and annotations he had scrounged off the internet but like always, Shakespeare just refused to make any sense to him. Betrayal, love, murder, politics, yaddi yaddi yadda; you'd wonder whether old William had ever heard of clichés. Then again, he'd probably invented most of those clichés... "Maybe I'd have done better if my tutor were here."

"Don't be too hard on Annabeth," Grover chided as he led Percy out through the solid oak doors of the library. "She hasn't seen Luke in forever!"

"Three months to be exact," the teen grumbled, remembering the blonde's uncharacteristically giddy smile. They walked together to the campus gates in silence as Percy's mind buzzed with the same question that had been bugging him since Annabeth had mentioned her phantom boyfriend. He didn't know _why_ he was so curious; she was just someone he had a few classes with...well, now she was his tutor so maybe that's why he cared to know so much. Yeah, that made sense. He had to plan study dates (or rather, study SESSIONS) with her, therefore they'd be spending a lot of time together. So, swallowing his guilt and letting his hidden inner gossip emerge, he asked: "So, why's Luke away in the first place?"

Grover raised an eyebrow at the question before answering. "He's away on an exchange program."

"And Annabeth doesn't mind?" Percy blurted out before the question even registered in his mind.

"No, she doesn't," Grover responded warily, turning to face a red faced Percy. He was glad the teen was trying to get to know Annabeth, but that was kind of personal...

"Oh, that's good then," Percy breathed out, walking past his friend, the decorative white latticework that adorned the school gates coming into view. He walked onto the sidewalk and waved a hasty goodbye to Grover. "See you G-man!"

"Bye Percy!" Grover replied cheerily, deciding not to ponder too much on the confusing thoughts of his teenager friends. He turned on his heel and trotted back into the school, happy that two of his best buddies were going to be spending time together.

Percy ambled along the uphill street to his bus stop, worrying about tomorrow's classes and wondering yet again why he even attended this school.

CHB was an exclusive academy that hosted an eclectic mix of students, most of whom didn't even know what they were doing in private school. The kids weren't from any particular social group; there were the standard geeks, class clowns, and jocks that every other school had. But there was one strange thing about the cliques in this school, something that took Percy a while to realize.

It started with the rowdy track and field team who'd first invited him to eat lunch with them at their humongous table in the cafeteria. At first he thought that maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but Percy noticed that all the track kids all had the same kind of upturned eyes. It was like looking at an extended family reunion.

Then Percy started seeing it in his classes.

The bookworms had different shades of blonde hair but exactly the same color of grey eyes.

All the wood shop students had the same burly build and intense fiery gaze.

And every person on the archery team had sandy hair, sky blue eyes and a smile so bright that it looked like the sun had just risen.

Heck, even the popular kids (you know the ones that always spend half an hour in front of a mirror) looked like they were all siblings.

Everyone had somewhere to fit into in CHB. Everyone of course but Percy.

He sighed deeply into the nifty autumn air, watching the fog from his breath fade out. He'd never been Mr. Popular at any school but it was different in CHB. It was like everyone knew who to be friends with. Well there was Grover, the quirky custodian/groundskeeper/postman that had delivered Percy's acceptance letter in the first place. A letter that had come at a perfect time, seeing as he'd just been kicked out of his old school for...an incident.

Lost in his thoughts, Percy unconsciously made his way to the stop, his feet having memorized the familiar daily path. Restless and frustrated, he swung on back and forth on his heels as he waited for the bus to pull up. He needed someone to talk to, someone who wasn't involved with all the stress and drama that happened in CHB.

_Speak of the devil,_ Percy thought to himself seeing a familiar mess of reddish brown hair drive in with the bus. He digging into his bag, he stepped on. _Now where'd I put my bus pass..._

"Anytime today would be good," the driver muttered as Percy sorted through loose papers, books and miscellaneous stuff.

"Here, I've got a ticket for him," a sing song voice called, its owner sauntering towards the front. The ticket slipped into the validating machine with a beep as the driver waved them back with a disinterested grunt. Percy smiled at his ticket saviour and followed her to the back of the bus. They plopped down on the back most seats, her bright green, oversized t-shirt sagging over her knees and his navy blue uniformed sweater hanging unbuttoned at his sides. "I haven't seen you for a weeks and _that's_ the face you show me? What's up?"

"It's nice to see you too Rach," Percy responded, rolling his eyes as she stuck her tongue out at him. She frowned when he didn't elaborate on his apparently obvious bad mood. Taking out a purple sharpie from one of her many hidden pockets, Rachel proceeded to doodle on her jeans, adding another layer of colour onto the collage of scribbles that had accumulated on the fabric. Seeing as she had her stubborn face on, Percy decided to try and move the conversation to her direction. "How's life been on your end of the world? Has Hoover High been same as always?"

"Meh, nothing interesting is happening nowadays," she replied idly. She recapped her sharpie and started picking at a hole in her jeans as Percy waited for any elaborations. "Just some ruckus going on in my Dad's business."

"So no one's still talking about last year's incident?" Percy asked.

Rachel craned her neck to look up at Percy and their eyes met, emerald staring deep into sea. "I hate how much you grew over the summer."

"Stop skirting the question Rach," Percy huffed, running a hand through his raven locks. "And it's only a few inches."

"Try half a foot," she grumbled. "And no, they're not all still talking about your little incident. The scandal wasn't _that_ big. Don't be so egotistical, Percy Jackson."

"That's great," he grinned. Leaning back into his seat he continued. "And you seem to be your regular sarcastic self, which means there aren't any rumours about you either. Thank god they've let it go."

The truth was, Rachel Elizabeth Dare _did_ have rumours about her circulating around Hoover High, and she knew it. But Percy didn't need to know that, he'd just feel guilty about it. She wished that all the hushed whispers, fretful glances, and awkward silences at school would go away, but...that had nothing to do with Percy now. Not now that he'd moved away, and Rachel wanted it to stay that way.

So she slapped a strained smirk onto her face and gave her friend a playful shove. "Yeah, and thank god the most annoying boy in Hoover High's gone and gotten himself enrolled in some prissy private school. Do tell, _Perseus_ how has CHB been? And again, I have to say what a GREAT name to give a school."

"And again, I have to tell you, it's got to be an abbreviation for something," Percy countered, frowning at her use of his real name.

"Hmm? So it's short for what?"

"Well no one really knows," he muttered.

Rachel quirked an eyebrow at the statement and snorted, "You're serious?"

"Well yeah..."

"Sooo, how's life at good ol'," another snicker. "CHB?"

"Nothing special," he said as he diligently ignored the poorly concealed sniggers. "I've got a tutor now though."

"Your mom got you a tutor?"

"No, my English teacher gave me a tutor. I've sucked enough to earn one."

"So who is he? Some bumbling old coot with big glasses and a long beard?"

Percy stared questioningly at her and wondered why she looked so excited at the prospect of meeting what sounded like a real life Albus Dumbledore. "Noooo, _she_ is someone in my English class."

"Oh," Rachel mouthed, looking...oddly disappointed. "I was hoping he'd be one of those Dumbledore types. I could've taken a picture."

"What're you going to do with a picture of Dubledore?"

"Well duh, post it in my scrapbook!"

"You are SO weird, you know that?" Percy muttered.

_Ping!_

Percy stood at the sound and shouldered his bag. "Bye Rach, this is my stop. See you soon!"

"Bye Perce, show me a picture of your tutor some time."

His face scrunched up into a grimace at the thought while his cheeks tinged themselves pink. "Ugh what? That's so embarrassing. 'Hey Annabeth, pose for a while would you? My stalker friend wants to see what you look like'."

"Geez Percy it's not that much of a big deal," Rachel snapped as the bus came to a stop. "Stop being such a boy!"

"Whatever," he mouthed silently as he stepped away and plopped onto the pavement.

She opened a window and called after him just as he was walking away. "Try not to fall in love with her you dunce!"

A metal trash bin toppled over as Percy tripped unflatteringly into it. Oh, teasing him was _always _fun.

* * *

NEXT CHAPTER: We get to see Annabeth's tutoring methods, the Stoll brother's relationship advice and a whole lot of foreshadowing. Reviews are loved!


	3. The day just got better

**'CAUSE WE'RE OLDER AND WISER**

_Heard about the quiz._

_Meet me in the library as soon as break starts._

_~Annabeth_

Percy stared at the yellow post it that had sealed his fate with unadulterated loathing.

This proved to be a mistake.

"Percy, _what_ are you doing?"

"Fourteen," he replied.

Grey eyes narrowed in irritation and as Percy peeled the sticky note off his book cover and chucked it into a waste basket. "Fourteen?"

"You've said 'Percy, _what_ are you doing'," the teen started (in what was a scarily good impersonation). "Fourteen times."

"You counted?" Annabeth seethed.

He shrugged. "I was bored."

"You were—ARGH," she groaned, rubbing at her temples. "I think I feel a headache coming on...You're incorrigible, you know that?"

"Inporridgable?" Percy parroted as best he could. "So that's...what? Being un-porridge-like?"

Her mouth dropped open into a perfect 'o' then turned into a very pretty color of purple. Percy didn't know it was humanly possible to turn purple.

"Just go," she ordered in flat monotone.

"Go?"

Percy couldn't help but sigh in relief at her nod. Annabeth was nice and all, but she got _way_ too into English. So he gathered his books and left the fuming bookworm with a cheery 'see ya!' and hoped she'd learn to relax a bit more.

Annabeth rested her head on the cool surface of the library desk and reflected on the past twenty minutes (which had felt like an _hour_). After around ten seconds she found that she couldn't get past the wall of irritation that had rooted itself in her mind. It wasn't like Percy was annoying...at first. He was fine when they'd started, but as time dragged on, he just grew more irritable and snappy; until finally, frustration had cornered him and turned him into a total jackass.

Sighing, her hand reached out to a worksheet her tutee had been writing on. She raised her head to rest just her chin on the table so she could read whatever ridiculous answer he'd coughed up.

Several multicoloured smiley faces stared back at her.

Another groan rumbled in her throat as he stared at those smug little faces, mocking her with their colourful grins. She stretched her arms upwards, titling her chair backwards, and sighed. Getting Percy's marks up would be hard enough without the attitude. As she swung her chair back on its four legs, something caught her eye: actual intellectual answers on the back of the smiley sheet. The gears started clicking away in her head as she read through them...

_Interesting, _she thought to herself, processing Percy's written work. _Maybe he isn't completely hopeless after all._

She needed to find a way to get them back on civil ground, just friendly enough that they'd be able to work without glaring each other to death. The fastest solution would be to apologize, but there was NO way in hell she was going to do that.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"There's no way in hell-

-you're going to apologize."

"And I should take your advice because?" Percy asked in between huffs.

"Because we're older than you-

-and therefore, much, much wiser!"

"STOLLS, JACKSON, KEEP RUNNING!" called the coach's booming voice.

"You heard the man Percy," the Stoll brothers chorused, racing ahead.

_Damn track and field kids,_ Percy thought to himself as he attempted to pump his legs faster. Why exactly couldn't he say sorry to Annabeth? It was obviously the right thing to do. He'd acted like a complete jerk and she was just trying to help—

"We sincerely hope-"

-that the constipated looking face you have on-"

"-doesn't mean that you're thinking about apologizing again."

"How the heck did you two lap me so fast?" Percy screeched in exasperation as Travis and Connor flashed their signature sarcastic smiles.

"Percy, Percy, Percy," Connor started.

"You are a specimen of what we here at CHB would call," Travis droned.

"A noodle!" his brother chirped.

"A-a noodle?" Percy panted as they neared the finish line. He teetered over to the wire fence that bordered their track and leaned heavily against it, his rapid breaths fogging as he exhaled. "What's that supposed to mean."

"It means that you're as athletic as a noodle," Connor supplied as the two brothers stared in mock pity at their breathless friend.

An irate Percy glared back. Today just wasn't his day. He'd woken up later than usual because his mom was sick and needed taking care of. That resulted in him missing his bus, a bus that only came every twenty minutes. After getting through the horrible start, he'd gotten his quiz back and somehow Annabeth had found out how low his mark was. He did _not_ need these two playing their usual pranks on him today.

"HEY JACKSON! Maybe you need a gym tutor now too!"

Then again, the Stolls were a million times better than _that_.

Tall, haughty, and smug, Clarisse La Rue marched purposely past them, with two of her loyal cronies trotting along behind her. She and her group of merry delinquents were the highest-profile bullies Percy had ever met. And of course, following the mystical laws of CHB, they all had their 'family' similarities: quick tempers, unrivalled arrogance and enough muscle to crush a rock barehanded. Ok not really, but human bones are a lot softer than rocks.

"Keep walking La Rue!" Travis yelled as Connor pointed a very rude gesture her way.

Clarisse mirrored the action and stalked off to wherever she was headed, her lackeys following suit. This left the Stolls with deep-set frowns on their faces, their customary expression whenever they came in contact with Her Royal Bitchiness.

"Come on guys," Percy beckoned, pushing off the fence and walking towards school building. The red-brown-gold autumn foliage crunched under his feet as he forged his way through. "Don't let her get to you."

They followed him slowly, their expressions unchanging. The Red Hogs, as Percy had heard Clarisse's gang called, had deep rooted animosity with the Track Kids.

"We're not worried about her," Connor muttered as they entered the building and headed to their gym lockers.

"The Hogs are always target new kids," Travis informed him, kicking the swinging locker room door open. "Nothing's happened to you _yet_ but I'll bet my whoopi cushion that she's up to something."

"But you two are _always_ up to something," Percy countered, wondering not for the first time as to why the two groups had so much enmity between them.

"That's different," they said in perfect sync. The two turned to their adjacent lockers and fiddled with their lock combinations in silence.

Percy turned to his own locker, knowing that the brothers would get over their moping eventually, and froze.

There, tacked up neatly onto the center of his locker, was a neatly written note in very recognizable cursive scrawl.

_Meet me again at lunch today._

_Library, 12:40pm_

_~Annabeth_

"How'd she even know which one was mine?" Percy asked himself as he gazed haplessly at the rows of grey identical metal.

And of course, who was there to swoop into his pathetic misery?

"You look like you've seen a ghost," one of them commented. Percy was too busy being gobsmacked to register which one. They must have spied the post it (yellow pops out marvellously from grey you see), because unsuppressed snickers followed soon after.

"Guys, just don't," Percy pleaded, yanking his lock open and peeling his bright orange PE shirt off. He stuffed it into his locker, pulled a plain white shirt on, and swapped his gym shorts for a pair of uniformed light tan slacks. Thankful that the Stolls seemed to be backing off on the Annabeth issue, Percy grabbed his orange CHB tie and made his way out of the change room.

"Just remember Perce," Connor began.

"DON'T apologize," Travis reminded. "Girls are tricky things, and apologies just make everything worse."

Percy tried to make sense of that statement and found that he couldn't. But just before the Stolls could launch into one of their 'girl guru' speeches, an antagonized shout echoed through the halls.

"TRAVIS STOLL I WILL KILL YOU!"

For the first time ever, Percy saw two different expressions on the Stoll brothers. Travis seemed oddly proud of himself, while Connor had confusion slapped into his face. But slowly, ever so slowly, the confusion turned into realization, then horror, then annoyance.

"Bro, tell me you didn't," Connor said in an almost whisper.

Travis didn't reply as a muted sound crept closer.

_STOMP STOMP STOMP_

Something was coming...

"TRAVIS!"

...and that something was NOT happy.

Katie Gardner rounded the corner, eyes blazing and...purple hair trailing whimsically behind her.

"Wasn't Katie's hair brown?" Percy asked, flinching as she stomped towards them.

"Auburn brown," Travis corrected. His Cheshire grin softened a bit as he added. "Kinda like the color of all the trees in the middle of fall."

"Um Travis," Connor said. "Maybe we should start running...like now."

"That'd be a smart idea dear brother of mine," Travis agreed. Turning to Percy he repeated, "Remember Percy, NEVER apologize!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Did you eat lunch?"

"Yeah, but I wa—"

"Are you ready for English next block?"

"I guess so, but Annabeth I want to say tha—"

"We don't have time for chit chat Percy," the blonde interrupted. "We've got work to do."

"Work? But Ms. Nia didn't assign anything," the dark haired teen stated.

"Oh she didn't assign anything," Annabeth confirmed, taking a certain sheet of paper out. "We're going to show some incentive and have you write her an essay to make up for that quiz."

"An essay? But we only have twenty minutes until lunch ends!"

"That's why I said we have to focus," she repeated. Sliding the paper across the table towards him, she added, "And we'll be using these."

"...my smileys?"

"NO, your annotations."

"You mean the scribbles I made on the back of the smileys?"

Annabeth shot him a funny look before nodding, "Yes the scribbles. If we look hard enough and squint, they're actually really good points about the text. With enough help we can make a good enough essay to pull up your grades in twenty minutes."

"_Why_ do I have to do this?" Percy whined as Annabeth booted up a library laptop.

She set the computer in front of him, opened her copy of 'A Compilation of Shakespeare' and fixed him with the most intense, stormy gaze he'd ever seen. "Because I said so."

And so began the most hellish twenty minutes that Percy had ever lived through.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A happy Annabeth strolled jauntily through the halls by the end of the school day. Ms. Nia had accepted the essay and congratulated them both for it; Percy's average had been bumped up by at least 3% (which wasn't much, but it was a start); and best of all, she'd gotten through that cram session without having to apologize. This was turning out to be a pretty good day.

Something caught her eye as she reached her locker. A tiny square of sea green paper was taped up to the metal door. Blue, printed letters were written out on its faint wavy pattern.

_I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks._

_-Twelfth Night (Act 3, Scene 3)_

_~Percy J._

And suddenly, for some reason Annabeth just couldn't understand, the day just got better.

* * *

Next chapter: We get to see Percy's rather complicated family situation...get ready for some drama people!

Also, next week's chapter might be a BIT late (not really that likely because I'm excited about writing it) because I'm working on some Thalico (the third songfic in a trilogy :D drop by my profile if you're piqued).


	4. And pointed it shakily at xxx

**A NOT SO PERFECT FAMILY**

A dull grey shoe tapped impatiently on the ground. The bookworms sat clustered at the far end of their lunch table. They kept well away from the surly blonde that had secluded herself at the edge of the lunch benches, knowing full well that a pissed off Annabeth was a dangerous Annabeth.

"Um..."

"What?" she snapped.

Her vehement stare stopped Malcolm in his tracks. He gulped audibly and inched a bit closer. "Annabeth, do you want to talk about whatever's wrong?"

"No," she answered. "No I do not want to talk about it. Why do you care anyway?"

"Well, you've sort of been shooting off these death glares and people have been starting to get pretty scared," he told her.

"If you must know," Annabeth started. "My errant tutee has been absent from school for more than a week."

"Yeah I know, Percy's in my Science class," Malcolm said. "But why are you so bothered by it?"

"Do you have _any_ idea how much work he's missed in English?"

"Well," he began, wracking his head for any possible solutions. "You could go to his house and give him all the stuff he's missed. The school's got a directory for the entire student body."

She stared at him for a few minutes before saying anything. "That's a good idea, I'll go up to student services right now."

And with that she was gone.

The lunch table heaved a collective sigh at the peaceful outcome. No one had seen Annabeth this pissed since The Great Laptop Crash of '06. That debacle had not ended prettily.

But as Malcolm gave the rest of the bookworms a thumbs-up, he wondered. Annabeth wasn't one to delve too deeply into other people's business. Why was she so caught up in Percy Jackson's absence? Even if he was his tutor, she normally wouldn't have cared _that_ much. He couldn't help thinking that the architecture enthusiast had changed ever since she became Percy's tutor.

Not like he'd say that to her face though. He _did_ like living thank you very much.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Red gold foliage rustled in the autumn breeze, occasionally dropping a brittle leaf down onto Annabeth as she waited in the bus line. By the time she finally got on, every seat had been taken. Sighing, she resigned herself to teetering in place as the bus gave a lurch forward and started making its way down the street.

"You're going to fall if you stand like that," said a helpful voice.

Annabeth looked to the voice and saw a peculiar girl wave a greeting at her. The stranger had her frizzy red hair pinned up with what looked like twenty multi coloured bobby pins. "Well there's nowhere to sit."

The redhead beckoned her closer and pointed to the Plexiglas window above her head. "Just lean a hand against that. It makes balancing a lot easier."

"But there's a 'keep hands off glass' sign," Annabeth pointed out, staring at the neon yellow sign.

"It's fine, don't worry about it," Red said.

"But..."

The bus jostled violently as a car up ahead ran a red light. Its passengers shifted and reeled, seemingly unfazed by the erratic driving. The only reason they'd be so unresponsive would be because it just happened so often. With another sigh, Annabeth made her way towards the friendly stranger and planted an open palm on the smooth glass.

"Oh, you've dropped something," Red exclaimed, bending down to pick the fallen object off the ground. She looked it over and regarded it closely before holding it up to Annabeth. "A sand dollar?"

"It's a good luck charm," the blonde replied as Red dropped the small disc into her hand. Annabeth rubbed at the worn tan surface with her thumb before sticking it into her pocket.

Curious green eyes sparkled up at grey irises. "Where'd you get it?"

"Someone special gave it to me," Annabeth replied, not elaborating on the fact that she'd almost drowned the day she got her sand dollar. Red didn't need to know that; it was personal. A familiar feeling of wonder and appreciation welled up inside of her at the memory of the kind boy who'd pulled her out of the freezing seawater all those years ago. "It's supposed to keep me safe."

"Best not to drop it again then," Red commented.

"Right," she nodded with a small smile. Annabeth dug a neatly folded piece of paper out of her pocket and bit her lip. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where Moonlace Drive is would you?"

"Oh, I've a friend who lives on that street," Red said helpfully. "You get off at the next stop, which is coming up in around ten seconds."

"Oh thanks," she thanked, moving towards the doors. They opened with a pneumatic hiss as Annabeth stepped out and waved a hasty goodbye to her new friend. She hoisted her extra heavy backpack (loaded with all of Percy's missed work) and looked up the unfamiliar street. She spotted a man ambling along and decided to ask for directions. As she walked towards him, she couldn't help thinking, a bit guiltily, that he looked like a tusk-less walrus in thrift store clothes. But ah well, no one else was around and she hadn't thought of google-mapping for directions. "Excuse me?"

"Wha?" he slurred, turning is massive double-chinned head towards her. The stench of cheap booze, chewed tobacco and general filth hit Annabeth in a wave of olfactory assault. Her eyes watered from the reek. "Wha' d'you want?"

_No sense backing out now,_ she thought to herself. "Do you know where 6068 Moonlace Drive is?"

"HA," the drunken man barked, spraying spittle. "You wanna go there? To _that_ dump? Go ahead girlie, it's that piece 'o shit building over there."

He motioned to a red brick building at the end of the block and chortled out a few more guffaws before turning beetle black eyes to Annabeth. It was exactly three seconds before she realized he was waiting for her to say something. "Thank you for your help."

And with that she left the drunkard to his own devices, which apparently consisted of slumping against a mailbox and falling asleep. Worry tugged at the corners of Annabeth's mind. It didn't feel right just leaving him there in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Mngh," the man mumbled through the haze of intoxication. And then he sputtered an offensive phrase. It was one of the most chauvinistic, sexist, disrespectful things Annabeth had ever heard. After that, she didn't feel so bad walking away from the drunken lump.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sally Jackson got up as soft tinkling sounded from the kitchen. Her son was cleaning up after another fight. Her nose tingled slightly as she blew into a Kleenex, shuffling towards her bedroom door. Sally cracked the door open and stuck her head out. "Percy?"

He looked up from where he crouched squatting on the ground next to the kitchen counter. Yellow rubber gloves adorned his hands while he dumped shards of jagged glass into a small sized garbage bag. "Mom? I thought you were asleep."

"No one could sleep through that," Sally said, a weak smile on her lips as she moved in to help him. "Let me help."

"You should be in bed," Percy said. He swept up the rest of the debris and knotted the plastic bag. "If you keep trying to do housework the fever's not going to go away."

"I'm the mom here Percy," she reminded him, crossing her arms in mock anger.

The corners of his mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile. "I know."

And then the doorbell rang and Percy turned, grimfaced, towards the apartment door.

"Mom, get back into your room," Percy fretted. He herded her back as a single thought flashed in his mind. Rising anger and anxiety chafed against each other in the pit of his stomach. WHY was the asshole back so soon?

Sally resisted. "Percy, I don't think you should face him alone. The two of you will just get into another fight."

Percy put his hands on her shoulder blades and pushed her gently into the threshold of her room. He tried to ignore the cringe of pain that ran through her; his finger must have brushed against an old bruise. Swinging the door closed, Percy kissed his mom on her cheek. "Better me than you."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Annabeth trudged up the stairwell a bit apprehensively. It had just occurred to her, as a kind old lady had let her into the building, that she'd never even seen Percy out of school. The thought nibbled at her and she wondered absentmindedly how his room would look. She neared the Jackson apartment and rang the doorbell, finding herself imagining his walls painted the same sea green color of his eyes.

Eyes that she hadn't thought could look so livid with hate.

Yet that was exactly what she saw as the door jerked back violently, its chain lock holding it in place. The ocean pools that had always looked at her with annoyance and amusement were now filled with what Annabeth could only describe as unbridled rage.

She recoiled from his glare as if she'd been stung. Thankfully, his eyes softened, first to confusion, then surprise, and finally apology. But Annabeth still felt the ache of the vehement gaze; it was an unfamiliar pain that she didn't understand and that frustrated her to no end.

"Oh," Percy gasped, pulling the door closed with a gentle click. She heard the chain lock slide open before he reopened the door. "Annabeth, what're you doing here?"

"I came to give you all the work you missed," she replied, thankful that her voice sounded steadier than she felt.

"Work?" he echoed, scrunching his brow. "English work?"

"Well that wouldn't have been very productive," she scoffed. Inwardly, Annabeth was surprised at her sarcasm. She hadn't meant to say that. "I brought work from all your subjects. Why do you think my backpack looks like it's going to explode?"

Percy smiled half-heartedly at the idle banter that always ping-ponged back and forth between his tutor and him. It was a prettier part of his life. Deciding that spilling out schoolwork in the middle of the hallway was a bad idea, he offered, "Well do you want to come in?"

Hesitation glued Annabeth to the spot for a second before she stepped past Percy with a polite 'thanks'. The apartment was bathed in the warm orange glow that only autumn afternoons brought. She could only see the dining room and kitchen from where she stood, but everything seemed to have a recurring theme. The fridge magnets, kitchen towels, soap bars, they were all—

"Blue," Annabeth muttered.

"What was that?" Percy asked as he relocked the door. He fumbled with the chain, realizing that he was still wearing the yellow gloves.

"All your stuff," Annabeth said. "Even your wallpaper, it's all blue."

"It's my mom's favourite color," he said, yanking the gloves off and setting them on the not-so-smooth surface of his old dining table.

"Oh," she breathed. Her backpack thudded on the floor as she set it down; its zipper was already halfway open. The brown paper envelope she'd filled with handouts and homework assignments bulged out. Annabeth plucked it free and looked through it, checking to see if anything was missing. "Do you like blue?"

"I like it too, but not the same shade she likes," Percy answered as he dumped the broken glass into the trash before Annabeth could notice it. Knowing her, she'd want to know exactly how he'd managed to break it. It wasn't something that would be so easy to explain...

But Annabeth didn't notice. She was too busy wondering why there weren't any photos anywhere. "What shade do you like?"

"The blue that's the color of the sea," Percy replied. "My mom likes a greener blue."

"Like the color of your eyes," she commented, her face blushing ever so slightly.

"She says it reminds her of my dad," Percy nodded as he took the envelope out of his tutor's hands, frowning at its heaviness. "Geez, why does the school give so much homework?"

"We've got high academic standards," Annabeth declared.

"My old school didn't give half as much," he muttered.

"Would your old school let you miss half a week of school?"

"I had personal reasons."

"Percy?" a gentle voice called, cutting Annabeth's retort off. "Who was at the door?"

"Just a friend Mom," he called back.

A brunette walked out of the corridor that Annabeth had noticed as she entered. She was thin and frail looking, wearing a blue robe and olive green sweatpants. Her eyes were slightly lidded while her nose was most definitely red. Stray strands of grey ran through her chocolate brown hair, tied up in a haphazard bun.

Percy's frown deepened. "Mom, you're not going to get any better if you keep walking around."

"I'm fine Percy," Mrs. Jackson replied. She turned to Annabeth and smiled the kind smile that only moms ever smiled. It was something that was unfamiliar to the blonde, but it was nice. "Hi sweetie my name's Sally Jackson, it's nice to meet you. Are you a friend from CHB?"

"Nice to meet you too Mrs. Jackson my name's Annabeth," Annabeth said back, surprised to have a parent introduce her first name. "And yes, I'm Percy's peer tutor."

"Oh!" Sally exclaimed, taking a seat at the table and looking up at the two teens. "I've heard about you from Percy."

"Moooom," Percy whined in that grown up way only teenagers could pull off.

"Oh Percy," Sally chided. "It's alright to tell your mother about your day."

The two of them drifted into mother-son talk and Annabeth found herself wondering, not for the first time, if her mother would have ever wanted to do this with her. A light atmosphere had settled over the room, radiating from Sally and Percy. They were like those happy families that you see in picture frames when you first buy them.

Then, for the second time that day, the doorbell rang and the Jacksons' fragile, temporary peace was shattered into a million pieces.

The two Jacksons tensed. Annabeth could see the hate creep back into Percy's eyes, but this time it was mixed in with what looked like...fear.

"Mom you have to go back in," Percy said hastily, tugging at his mom's arm and helping her up. The sleeve of her robe rode up and sagged to her elbow and Annabeth's eyes widened in surprise. An ugly dark bruise marred her arm. "He's coming."

"Percy never mind me," Sally said with a dismissive wave. She pulled her sleeve back down and stood on her own, looking her son in the eye. "I've dealt with him for a long time now. _You_ have to worry about Annabeth."

Percy looked like he'd run into a glass wall. His face was contracted in shock. He snapped his mouth closed as he turned to Annabeth, thinking an embarrassing thought. _I'd forgotten she was even here._

But before he could usher her to somewhere safe, before Sally could get herself into the bedroom, before Percy could even unlock the door...

...the strong smell of drunkenness and filth wafted through.

Gabe Ugliano stumbled in through the broken door that had cracked under his weight. He looked at the three of them through glazed eyes and raised his right arm. Something was held in his grubby fisted hand, something that glinted maliciously in the afternoon light.

And Percy watched as his stepfather pulled a vicious looking knife out and pointed it shakily at—

* * *

Note: Yes, I didn't write the name there on purpose.

P.S. Thalico oneshots :D Get yer thalico oneshots! Click my profile and get some thalico oneshots!


	5. This time it just wasn't enough

WARNING: There is an F-bomb in this chapter, along with a lot of other colorful swears. I'm sorry but I felt like I had to stick them in for emphasis and such. Here's when everything starts getting dark and twisty. Get used to it, it's gonna be happening a lot.

**

* * *

EVERYONE'S GOT A BACKSTORY**

Gabe Ugliano had an unlucky life. He'd come from a family where all the bad things that you're told not to do, were done. Then one day, after an especially bad night when the booze had run dry, he left, taking the only thing he cared about with him: his little sister Abby. For years the streets had raised them on cold hard reality. But when he was eighteen and she was twelve, his father came to find them. The remnants of a boy yearning for his father's attention rose in Gabe, but no, Dad hadn't come for him.

He had come for Abby; sweet, sensible Abby.

Gabe fought with all he had to keep her with him. But his father was adamant; he needed Abby to pay off some debts. _Take me_, the teen had pleaded to no avail. Dad _needed_ Abby because she was his daughter, because she was a girl.

Something died in Gabe Ugliano the day he watched his father take his baby sister away. Something that he'd tried nursing with less than legal vices ever since.

If there was one thing he knew for sure, it was that family meant trouble.

And now he was in another one. One that wasn't even his own.

That damn bitch had roped him into it, taken care of him while he was passed out and talked him into marriage. It was only after his non-stop hangover had abated somewhat that Gabe found out; the whore had a kid.

But here was a chance to end it all, his ticket to freedom at last.

So without any ounce of hesitation, Gabe tipped his switchblade knife on his wife and charged. Three lumbering steps in, something thudded heavily against his side, knocking him down. Gabe lashed out with his knife, catching glimpses of a jet black hair and sea green eyes

"RUN!" screamed Percy. Whether it was to his mother or to Annabeth, he didn't know. "I've got him, just RUN!"

Sally yanked Annabeth from where she stood, frozen to the spot, and dragged her through the corridor to the master bedroom. She tossed the blonde in with a hint of borderline hysteria before striding back out, leaving Annabeth alone in the dimly lit room.

It all seemed so wrong. Percy was a dweeb. Percy was bad at English. Percy never color coded notes and always used blue ball pens. Percy was NOT an abused child. That man was NOT related to Percy in any way, and Percy would NOT get hurt fighting him.

Shock and denial ran through Annabeth. She sat there amongst bits of used Kleenex, unmoving except for the slight tremble at her fingers.

Wait.

What was she doing?

That was Percy.

Percy, her bumbling idiot of a tutee who always needed her help.

And she was always there to give it. That was her job after all.

What was stopping her now?

Steeling her resolve, Annabeth calmed herself with a few shallow breaths before pulling herself up onto shaky legs. Surveying her surroundings, stormy grey eyes settled on a work desk on the other side of the room. She took small, unsteady steps towards it. A series of heavy thuds sounded from outside and Annabeth willed her legs to stop wavering.

The desk was somewhere between neat and messy. Sheets of paper lay in haphazard piles across it while a stack of binders rose in a pile off to the left. But these didn't interest Annabeth. She was looking for something specific. Her gaze swept over the office supplies, grazing over half-finished documents and unsealed mail envelopes.

_There,_ she thought as her hands closed around the object she was searching for.

Hastily, she stowed it behind her back and made her way back to the living room. Her footfalls were soundless as she crept through the corridor.

"Fuck this," cried an unfamiliar voice, guttural and slurred. Annabeth froze yet again, yet this time out of caution because a tensed silence had fallen. She was just at the corner, one more step and she would be in full view of the rest of the apartment. "I'm leaving."

Before Annabeth could breathe a sigh of relief, Sally called out. "Gabe no! We...we can work this out."

"Mom! We don't need him!" Percy exclaimed, his voice cracking with frustration. "We don't need the good-for-nothing son of a—"

"PERCY," Sally warned suddenly frantic again.

Annabeth peered around the corner and saw why. The stranger, Gabe she corrected, was struggling to his feet. A dark red line traced from his mouth to his chin, where Percy must have hit him. The blonde went unnoticed as she inched towards the scene, leaving the corridor.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as adrenaline pumped through Annabeth's veins.

Gabe hurled himself forward, clipping Percy as the teen shoved his mother out of the way. The two grappled once again, this time equally unarmed...or so they thought.

Percy couldn't have seen it, but Annabeth did. A small black something slipped into Gabe's hand from his pocket. She recognized it immediately. It was a Swiss army knife, just like the one she'd given her dad for his birthday but so, so, so much worse.

And suddenly, she was behind them, her hand tightening around the scissors she had picked up in the bedroom. The stink of intoxication hit her full force as she plunged her fist into Gabe's shoulder.

He tore away from her and pushed Percy off. A ragged tear ran along the back of his grubby coat, exposing the slightly frayed cloth of an undershirt, spotted crimson where the scissors had scratched skin.

Annabeth stared him down, hand clenched around the scissors so hard her knuckles turned white.

Gabe stared back, eyes flashing with loathing and something else the blonde didn't recognize. His bloody lip moved slightly as he mumbled to himself under his breath.

Then all of a sudden, the fight seemed to drain out of him. He stuffed his Swiss army knife back into a pocket and fished a gleaming gold ring out. Throwing it disdainfully at the floor he growled. "Keep the damn apartment. I hope I never see either of you again."

And just as abruptly as it had started, the whole affair had ended.

Warm hands pried at her stiff fingers. "It's ok Annabeth you can let go."

Annabeth didn't reply as Percy gently took her hand in his.

"Is she going to be alright?" Sally asked as Percy confiscated the scissors.

"I think so," he replied. "Maybe she's in shock..."

"...'m not in shock," Annabeth mumbled, just loud enough to be heard. Looking up, she met sea-green eyes, gazing intently back. A rapidly forming bruise surfaced on his cheek and marred his dishevelled face. She sucked in a sudden breath, and turned to Sally. "We s-should call the police. This is a domestic disturbance."

The blonde felt her tutee tense. His hands tightened around hers. "We can't. If the police came we'd be dead."

"What?" Annabeth asked.

"This building doesn't," Sally paused. She let out a gusty sigh and rubbed at a temple. "Doesn't deal well with the police. The tenants would be in an uproar. And if they find out we called the cops in...Well, eviction would be the least of our problems."

Percy fidgeted when Annabeth made no reply. Sally bit at her lip and looked at a wall clock. "She should get home."

"I'll call Grover," her son said, making his way to his room for his cell phone.

Annabeth clasped her hands together. They were cold and clammy to touch and she found herself wishing Percy would hold them again.

Sally saw her troubled expression and her expression melded into one of deep, sincere apology. "I'm so sorry, dear."

_No_, she wanted to say. _I'm not the victim here._

But the words caught in her throat and stayed there until Grover came to pick her up.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Annabeth?" Grover called, nudging her tentatively. "Annabeth you're almost home."

Rousing from fitful sleep, Annabeth looked out the cab window and saw that her friend was right. The familiar houses of her borough blurred by, silhouetted by the fading rays of the twilight sun. The afternoon's surreal events seemed like a nightmare, something that she'd dreamed up on the way home. But the mere fact that she was in the cab with Grover was proof enough that everything had in fact been real.

"Annabeth?" Grover repeated. He picked nervously at his green uniformed coveralls; the CHB emblazoned on was already looking a bit threadbare. "Say something please..."

"Did you know?" she finally choked out. "About Percy I mean."

The custodian didn't answer right away and gave an anxious little bleat. "Yeah."

Accustomed to her old friend's odd nervous tendencies, Annabeth ignored the bleating and set her mouth into a slight frown. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't know you were going," he admitted. "You asked Gleeson Hedge for Percy's address so I had no idea."

"Not that!" Annabeth snapped, exasperated. "I mean, why didn't you tell the authorities? They could have _done_ something."

"Sally asked me not to," Grover said in a quiet voice. He looked at her through dense curly bangs and added, "She needed Gabe Ugliano."

"_Needed_ him?" the blonde parroted. Disbelief coated her words as she pressed at the statement. "How on Earth could _anyone_ need that, that, that..._ass_?"

Grover was a bit taken back at that. Annabeth _never_ swore. "Ugliano is an important name in the...crime syndicates. The Jacksons needed him for protection. As long as Sally held Ugliano's name, they were safe."

"Crime syndicates?" she all but screeched. "What would Mrs. Jackson have to do with crime syndicates?"

"It's not so much because of Sally," Grover mumbled. "It's Percy...his father, his real father I mean, isn't really the most _legal_ man in the city."

And she had wondered why Percy never pulled through with school work...

"Annabeth, Sally's asked me to ask you to keep quiet about this," Grover continued. "She isn't forcing you or anything but they'd be grateful if you did."

"What'll happen to them now?"

"I don't know, but we'll figure it out."

"How?"

"I'll tell the school; they'll contact Peeeercy's dad."

"Wait, they can contact his dad?"

"Yeaaah," Grover bleated.

"Then why can't Percy and his mom talk to the guy?"

"It's personal...," he replied. "And Percy's dad has connections in the school; it's how he got into CHB in the first place."

"Oh, all right then," Annabeth said, finding that she had nothing else to say. Complicated thoughts and feelings rattled around her head for the rest of the ride home. Her hands, though no longer quivering, were still ice cold and sweaty. How long did Percy have to deal with all of this?

"Do you wanna hear something that might cheer you up?" Grover asked. His words were soft and kind, not harsh or patronizing. That was what she liked about him. Good old Grover always there for her whenever life was being a bitch.

"Sure," Annabeth nodded. Maybe he _could_ alleviate the heavy feeling that had settled in her gut.

He gave her a little smile and stated, "The Huntington girls are visiting the school next week."

Happiness flared in her as her mind registered what that meant. Her best friend was coming to visit. That had always been enough to set her in high spirits. But this time, she thought as the delight faded away, this time it just wasn't enough.

* * *

Note: No update next week because I'll be at camp...in the middle of October. It's gonna be 100% canoeing FUN.

P.S. Anyone wanna have a guess at what Gabe mumbled to himself before he left?


	6. It's nice to meet you

Note: Back with this week's chap! For anyone who actually wondered, Gabe mumbled something along the lines of "She's just like her..." or "Abby..." so kudos to The-only-real-annabeth-chase for guessing that right. Let's rock!

**

* * *

A HUNTING WE WILL GO**

"We are gathered here today to celebrate another glorious Monday. Wipe those miserable expressions off your faces; this isn't exactly a joy ride for me either. And so starts another long, drawn-out week..."

Annabeth listened a bit distractedly to Mr. Dionysus' weekly blurb of sarcasm. The sardonic principal droned on as she craned her head around, trying to spot Percy in the mass of students that had gathered in the auditorium. He promised that he'd go to school after the weekend but...

"...we have some visitors. Those of you who've had the misfortune – _ahem_—privilege of attending CHB for more than three years now might remember them. Please extend a warm welcome to the students from Huntington Girl's Academy."

She tore her eyes away from the crowd, her attention fluttering back to the stage. Annabeth watched the Hunters, as CHB denizens endearingly called them, parade onto the stage. They stood in a ramrod straight line; all dressed in the same crisp white blouses, pleated black skirts, and shimmering silver ties. Huntington's crest was supersized on the projector and splayed out proudly behind them; its bow and arrow cradled perfectly by a crescent moon.

"They will be using the lockers across from the archery club's storage room," Mr. D announced, waving a stubby hand in their general direction. "I hope everyone gets along _fabulously_ with them. Now, thank the gods, assembly is over. Go to break and let the teachers leave first."

Annabeth let herself get carried along by the steady flow of people, deciding to go look for Percy now since the Hunters were going to be too busy with settling in for her to bother them.

"Hey Annabeth!"

Well _most_ of the Hunters were too busy with settling in for her to bother them.

"Aren't you supposed to be with the others?" Annabeth asked, turning to face her long time best friend. Electric blue eyes laughed back at her under spiky black locks.

Thalia groaned at her friend and shook her head in mock exasperation. "Geez Annabeth, always such a stickler for the rules. Aren't you glad I'm risking major trouble to see you?"

Annabeth grinned and threw her arms around her friend. "Of course I am."

"Hey," the Hunter started, giving her friend a funny look. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Annabeth replied quickly.

"Are you su—"

"Thalia!"

"Geez," Thalia groaned, breaking up the short reunion. "That's Zoe, our Head Girl. I didn't think she'd notice me gone so soon."

"Thalia Grace!"

She flinched at the sound of her last name. "Bye Annabeth, I'll definitely see you around."

They shared another fleeting hug before Thalia ran off, weaving through the chattering crowd. Annabeth wished she could be as carefree as her friend seemed. Last weekend's ordeal still weighed heavily on her mind. Half of her wanted to report everything she'd seen to somebody. The other half was telling her to wait and trust Sally's decision to keep mum. And a minuscule voice inside her, which she'd squished into a far corner in her mind, was still completely freaked out by the whole thing.

Lost in her thoughts, Annabeth found that her feet had taken her down the familiar halls that lead to her locker. Her eyes immediately caught on something tacked up to it: a sea-green post it.

_Everything's fine_

_Please try and forget about what happened_

Forget? That featherbrained idiot wanted her to forget?

"Annabeth?" Malcom asked from his locker a few steps away. "You're looking a bit...murderous."

Malcolm instantly regretted having opened his mouth as Annabeth turned her barely restrained exasperation to him. "_Murderous_ you say?"

An audible gulp sounded from him. Malcolm's mouth felt unusually dry all of a sudden. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Percy would it? He looked pretty messed up this morning."

"You mean you've seen him?" Annabeth asked, suppressing her volatile feelings. It wasn't all just irritation to Percy's avoidance. The _stupid_ part of her that was still in shock over last week's incident was now going into overdrive. If he'd just talk to her about all this then maybe they could do something about it and be more proactive. "Where'd he go?"

"I don't know," Malcom answered. He gathered his things and shut his locker, glancing at a wall clock. "His locker would be a good place to look though. Class starts in like five minutes."

"Ok thanks," she said, clicking her lock shut. She dug through her bag and hurried down the hall, calling back a quick, "See you around!"

That was the fastest Malcolm had ever seen her run.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"We have a Huntington girl joining this class," Mr. Mercue announced as the class was quieting down. "This is Thalia Grace."

"Nice to meet you all," Thalia greeted.

Mr. Mercue at the class over thick rimmed glasses and commented, "There are a few empty seats in the back. Take any one of them Thalia, we don't have a seating plan."

The teacher took attendance as Thalia thanked him and made her way to the back of the room. She was just plopping down onto her seat when a loud bang sounded.

"SORRY I'M LATE," panted the boy who'd almost slammed the door off its hinges in his attempt to get it open. With dishevelled hair and dark-circles under his eyes, he stood guiltily in front of the Science teacher's desk.

"Busy this morning Percy?" Mr. Mercue asked rhetorically. He waved the boy's jumbled excuses away and motioned for him to take a seat. "I'll let that slide today. But next time, please try to make a less intrusive entrance."

"Sorry," Percy mumbled, shuffling into a seat next to Thalia. He dumped his backpack onto the table and sat heavily onto his chair, not noticing the new face in the class.

"Hey Percy," a dirty blonde called from two seats over. "Annabeth was looking for you."

"Yeah I know," Percy replied.

"So have you seen her yet today?" Blondie asked.

The color drained out of Percy's face as he answered. "No."

Mr. Mercue started talking about organic chemistry and Blondie didn't reply for a while. As soon as the teacher turned his back the conversation started up again. "Dude, Annabeth's going to kill you if you keep avoiding her."

"I'm not avoiding her Malcolm," Percy objected.

Malcolm stared at his classmate, gauging whether or not he should really get into an argument like this. Deciding against it, he shrugged and faced the front of the room. "Just try not to piss her off any more. She's pretty messed up about whatever happened."

"It's not like I'm doing it on purpose," Percy muttered.

Malcolm didn't seem to hear it, but Thalia did. In fact, she'd overheard the entire exchange. And from what she'd heard, this Percy person was someone who was harassing Annabeth...

"Thalia?" Mr. Mercue called, snapping her out of her character assessment. "Do you know what kind of organic compound this is?"

"It's an alcohol," she replied studiously. Thank God Huntington was slightly ahead in the Sciences. It meant that she could slack off a bit while she was at CHB.

Mr. Mercue nodded and turned back to the board. "That's correct. We know this because of the isolated OH group."

"Oh," Percy breathed noting her for the first time. Confusion etched his face as he took in her uniform. "You're one of those Huntington girls."

_No shit Sherlock_, Thalia thought to herself. "Yeah."

Percy was a bit put back by her terseness, but got over it quickly. He'd had worse than the cold shoulder treatment. Choosing to leave her be, Percy focused on Mr. Mercue and tried to take in the lesson. There was already Annabeth to worry about; he didn't need another irritable girl to deal with.

Ugh Annabeth, she was NOT going to be happy about the note he left her. She'd probably gone to his locker and beaten it into a pulp in frustration. Percy had managed to avoid the blonde this morning, but after Science he had English with her. Damn, how was he supposed to persuade her to just drop the issue?

"Ok everyone," Mr. Mercue started as he wrote out instructions on the board. "We're going to be doing a few worksheets. Get into groups of two and work your way through the package I'm handing out."

Percy looked around and saw that everyone had paired up already. Of course, the magical clique rule of CHB left him hanging. That left him with the Huntington girl. He turned to her as Mr. Mercue passed around the worksheets and held a reluctant hand out. "Hi, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Percy."

"Thalia," came her clipped reply. She ran a black nail-polished hand through her spiky short cropped hair and stood abruptly. "Well I guess we should get started."

They flipped through their papers in awkward silence. Percy couldn't figure out why Thalia was so...unfriendly. Given, he _did_ look like crap right now because of all the drama that had happened over the weekend and all of the stress that came with cleaning up after it; it didn't seem like enough to make someone act like that.

Thalia was confused. From what she'd heard, Percy had done...something or another to Annabeth, but here he was acting like Mr. Sort of Nice Guy. She decided to wait until Science ended before passing judgement onto him. He had roughly an hour to give her a reason not to hate his guts for whatever he did to Annabeth.

She read through the package and started scribbling answers on. A level hum of discussion filled the room, accented by pencil scratches and pen clicks. Percy was silent next to her for all of five minutes before letting out a sudden groan.

"Thalia, sorry but do you actually _get_ any of this?" he asked, hapless and perplexed.

She leaned over and looked at whatever he was struggling on: the first question, on the first page. "How do you _not_ get it?"

Percy slumped in his seat and set his pencil down. "I was gone for all of last week. A friend brought over all my missed work but she..."

"Hey Jackson," a brusque female voice called out. Thalia watched Percy's face contort with annoyance. "Do you need Annabeth to transfer in and help you through that?"

"Just mind your own business Clarisse," he said, raising his voice over the classroom noise.

"Clarisse," Mr. Mercue warned from behind his laptop. "Settle down or you're getting more work."

"Why would Annabeth help you?" Thalia asked, wondering if her friend was the one who'd brought Percy his things.

"She's my tutor," Percy stated, staring harder at his worksheet. Something clicked in his head and he turned to face Thalia. "Wait, do you know Annabeth?"

"She's a friend," she replied, staring hard at him. Maybe she could intimidate him into telling her what exactly his history was with Annabeth.

"Why exactly are the two of you staring at each other?" Mr. Mercue asked, suddenly in front of their desks.

"Just getting to know each other," Thalia replied.

"Um yeah," Percy added.

The teacher raised an eyebrow at them but seemed to disregard their weirdness. "Percy you're being pulled out of class."

"What? Why?" he asked, tension bleeding through him. Had Annabeth said anything?

"The guidance counsellor is calling you up for your appointment," Mr. Mercue informed him.

Percy's mind was racing. What would happen to him and his mom if the authorities found out about Gabe? "I didn't schedule an appointment."

"Well, you've got one now," Mr. Mercue said, eyeing Percy's piteously answer-free papers. "Get going, you wouldn't want to be late for something else today."

"See you Thalia," Percy said, packing his things away. He didn't wait to see if she'd reply. Anxiety saturated him. Why, why, why would Annabeth tell on them? This would ruin everything they'd suffered through for years. But despite the situation, despite the betrayal, why, why, why couldn't he stay mad at her?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Ah hello Percy," Chiron greeted. The guidance counsellor wheeled himself forward, using his wheelchair to keep the door open for the teen. "Come in, come in."

Percy walked in apprehensively. The kindly middle aged counsellor followed in soon after, closing his door gently behind him. The last time Percy had seen Chiron was when they'd talked about admissions. He was a nice enough guy but Percy had really hoped that he would never have to go into his office. CHB was supposed to give him a clean slate. No incidents, no scandals, nothing but a perfectly normal school life.

"Take a seat Percy," Chiron said, gesturing to one of two seats that were positioned in front of his desk. "We're waiting for one more person."

"Ok," Percy mumbled. He fidgeted fretfully in his seat, looking around the room for anything that seemed even remotely interesting. It was a bad habit of his he'd always had. "Um, Chiron, what exactly am I here for?"

"Just wait Percy, it'll be easier to do this once-," Chiron paused and looked towards the door. "It seems like he's here."

"Let me get it," Percy offered before Chiron could move. He stood and hopped a bit in between steps, anything to get rid of the excess nervous energy.

Percy opened the door to a complete stranger. The man in front of him was tall, probably over six feet tall, and tanned, like he spent all his time in the sun. He wore khaki pants, a navy blazer and a coconut tie. Percy looked the imposing man in the eye, since he only came up to the man's shoulder, and felt his eyes widen.

Sea-green met sea-green as a melancholy smile laced the man's countenance.

"Hello son, it's nice to meet you."

* * *

Note: Next chapter we get some angst, confrontations, cookies and FLUFF. Review please!


	7. She didn't need to know that

Note: I am very much aware of how STUPID Poseidon's "modern" name looks in this story. Bear with me, I couldn't call him Poseidon. No one in this century names their kids Poseidon.

**

* * *

EVERYTHING'S WEIRD AT FIRST**

Percy was speechless. All his life he'd wondered who his father was. Who was the man his mom had fallen in love with? When had he ever thought about them? What was so important that he'd left them? Most importantly, _why was he here_ _now_?

The teen stood there, unmoving and unresponsive as seconds ticked into minutes.

"Sir, welcome," Chiron greeted, finally breaking the tension and wheeling himself around his desk. "Come in, we were just about to start."

"Long time no see Chiron," the man said. He stood in the doorway, crowding it with his bulk, before clearing his throat and stepping around Percy with unease. "I presume this is him? If he isn't then I have just made this a very awkward situation."

"Awkward?" Percy squeaked out, hating how strained and weak his voice sounded. Emotion boiled up inside him. It wasn't anger, it wasn't resentment; it sure as hell wasn't love. It was just overwhelming feeling. "_That's_ what you're calling this?"

"Son...," the man started, reaching out.

"Don't," Percy said, dodging the outstretched hand. He stepped back and looked his father in the eye. Clenching his fists, the teen steadied himself with a deep breath. "Y-you can't just...come back and pretend. You can't just ignore the past fifteen years. You just _can't_."

"Percy, your father had his reasons," Chiron said sagely. He nodded towards two armchairs set up in front of his desk. "Reasons we're here to talk about."

Hesitation wracked him. Percy wasn't sure of what to do. His mind wanted to scream, to yell, to shout out his indignation. But he didn't feel up to it. The teen was tired after all that had happened...that _was_ happening in his life.

'Reasons', Chiron had said. The word echoed in Percy's mind, bouncing off old memories of seaside trips and fervent fights. So many things had happened because his dad left, and now he was being offered _reasons_.

"Percy," his prodigal father called, making his way to one of the armchairs and settling down. "If you want to talk about this, you should take a seat. This might be a lot for you to take in."

"Does she know?" Percy asked, surprised at the strength behind his words. At the two adults' confused expressions, he clarified. "Does my mom know he's here?"

"No," Chiron replied after a pause. "No she doesn't."

"Good," the teen nodded, plopping into the seat adjacent from his father and laying his bag on his lap. He pressed his palms against his forehead; they felt cool against the growing headache.

"So," the yet-to-be-named man started. "Where should we start?"

Another calming breath, Percy slowed down on his exhale. He lowered his hands and rested them on his backpack. Its well worn surface was comforting and familiar. Only one question was on the forefront of his mind, the one that he'd asked over and over again until he'd noticed his mom's tear-threatened eyes whenever he did. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mar Posei," Percy's father replied. He leaned back, elbows planted firmly on the chair's armrests and hands laced together at his chest. "Or as the business likes to call me, Don Mar Posei."

"Don?" Percy parroted. It sounded like something out of a Soprano movie. "As in...Mafia?"

A dry chuckle from Don Mar Posei's as he explained. "It's a nickname I've been given. You see, I control the comings and goings that happen on the seas. Trade, travel, tourism, anything that happens on a dock, has to go through me."

"I don't get it...," Percy mumbled, turning to Chiron for help.

"If you take your father's last name and add the 'Don' to it," Chiron started. "It becomes 'Poseidon', the Greek god of the seas."

Don Posei nodded and elaborated. "The title Don Posei was a joke at first. But as the Posei family gained power, the name stuck. So in reality, I'm nothing but a businessman."

"If you're so successful," Percy began, clutching his bag so hard his knuckles turned white. His voice was eerily calm as he continued. "Then why did you have to leave your family?"

A grimace twitched onto Don Posei's face at the word family. "There are reasons Percy."

Reasons, reasons, reasons. The word kept popping up. It was starting to grate on Percy's patience. "So _tell them to me_."

"I have power," Don Posei stated, putting a finger to his temple. The faint wrinkles on his brow creased as he went on. "And with the power comes danger; enemies that want to bribe or blackmail me. I knew that the more I associated with you, the more they would target you. I didn't want you getting caught up in my business."

"Well guess what," Percy said. Memories rushed through him. Of losing count of how many times they'd moved houses, of running back home because he'd been told to _never_ stay out after dark, of finding Gabe Ugliano and finally settling down to a life of turmoil. Stinging in his mouth as the taste of copper and salt filled it bought him back to the present. He'd been biting the insides of his cheeks. But it was good; the pain was making all this feel real. "They came anyway."

"Percy, calm down," Chiron instructed. The older man stayed behind his desk but Percy felt the guidance counsellor's brown eyes trailed on him, waiting, watching, for him to compose himself. "There's nothing more your father could have done to keep them away. Sending you extra security would have just been like painting a bulls-eye on you and your mother for all those who didn't know about your existence."

"Why couldn't you take us with you?" the teen pleaded, grasping for a reason. Any reason at all. He needed to know that they weren't thrown away just because Percy was a bastard and his mom wasn't married. He wanted to say more, but his throat was clenched with frustration and vehemence. No words would come.

Don Posei didn't answer right away. They stayed like that, stuck at a stalemate until the businessman finally answered. "The family wouldn't allow it."

Percy felt like he'd been turned to stone. Cold filled every part of him with numbness and ache at the same time. So it was true. The very thing he'd suspected since he'd been old enough to understand. He and his mom...they were unwanted.

"So that's your reason," Percy confirmed, getting up from his seat. He slung his bag onto his back. Its familiarity wasn't helping him now. "That it was too dangerous for you to come near us and too much trouble for you to take us in."

"Percy that isn't...," Don Posei started.

"Isn't _what_?" Percy exclaimed, letting his maelstrom of emotions out. "Isn't _true_? Tell me it isn't true!"

"PERCY," Chiron boomed.

The teen jumped at the crippled man's call. In all the time he'd known Chiron, Percy had never heard the man shout. Yet as he looked down at the old man in his wheelchair, Percy saw no anger, no irritation. It was just patience.

"Percy," the guidance counsellor repeated. "You need to understand that this situation is what you make of it. If you just listen to reason then—"

"Reason?" Percy screamed. "Your reasons aren't changing the truth. I'm just a-a _bastard_ and nothing's ever going to change that."

"Percy it is not as bad as you're making it out to be," Don Posei said. "Now that you know about all this, I can help you. I can help Sally."

"No," Percy said. He strode past his father and to the door. "We needed you before and you weren't there. You can't just suddenly come into my life and be a dad. It doesn't work that way!"

Percy flung the door open with a resounding bang and found himself staring at wide grey eyes.

"Percy?" Annabeth said softly. Shock poured off her countenance. She'd seen Percy like this before: when he'd fought Gabe in his apartment. The hatred on her tutee's face brought back memories of the incident. Her irritation at this morning's locker note vanished. "What's up? I heard shouting."

Resentment bubbled up inside of him and he hated it. This was Annabeth, who despite her questionable methods, had only ever helped him. But he couldn't stop himself from envying her. Annabeth probably had a normal family, not perfect, but normal. And that was all Percy ever wished for.

"Just leave me alone," he said gruffly, pushing past his tutor.

"What?" she said, watching him walk away. She wanted to follow him but something held her back. Turning to face the occupants of room 230, she asked. "What the heck happened to him?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The grey autumn sky wept. Raindrops pitter-pattered around him, constant and steady. Percy liked rain. The chilling deluge calmed him and cleared his head. And up here, on the rooftop, no one would bother him.

He laid there, arms and legs splayed out with his head cushioned by his sopping wet backpack. Too many things were happening at once. Too many thoughts were rattling in his head.

His eyes closed involuntarily as he revelled in the feel of the water rolling off his face.

First priority was to keep this a secret from his mom. This was going to be the first real lie he'd told her in almost eight years. They didn't lie to each other. That's not how their broken little family worked.

His brow scrunched with confusion. He could still hear the rain but couldn't feel it.

"Percy get up," commanded a familiar voice.

"Argh," Percy groaned, laying an arm over his eyes. "Annabeth, go away."

"No," she said. "Now get up."

"Annabeth, I'm serious. Go away."

"Percy, I'm serious too," Annabeth repeated. She yanked on his arm and nudged him with her toe. "Come on, at least get to the covered area."

"Fine," Percy said grouchily. Opening his eyes, he saw her staring down at him. She held a Tupperware in one hand and a clear transparent umbrella in the other. His clothes squished noisily as he shifted around, getting to his feet.

Together, they walked to the small covered area just outside the door leading into the school.

"You know," Annabeth said as she closed her umbrella. "I think your mom's really nice."

Percy gave his tutor a funny look. "What?"

"She's like the perfect moms you read about in little kid's books," she continued, pretending he hadn't said anything. "When I saw you two together in your apartment, it made me wonder. Maybe if my mom stayed with us, then she'd be like that too."

"What?" Percy asked, more forcefully this time.

Annabeth turned to him with a sad smile on her face. "Percy, I met my mom a little over four years ago, when I entered CHB. I was so little when we met, so there wasn't as much angst but...even with a ten year old, you get bad feelings. Where had she been? Why wasn't she coming home with us? You think it's the worst thing to ever shake your life but you get over it."

"Was it weird?" Percy whispered. "Letting her back in?"

"Everything's weird at first," Annabeth replied. She set her umbrella down, leaning it against the wall. She took her Tupperware in both hands and popped the top off. "Like blue cookies."

His eyes widened in surprise at the dozen chocolate chip cookies stacked up inside, all coloured bright blue. "You bake?"

"No," she confessed, handing him one. "We had Home Ec. before I came up here. Ms. Tia looked at me funny when I dumped the food coloring in, but hey you can't please everyone."

Percy took a bite out of the cookie and chewed. For some reason, it was sweet and salty. Sort of like what Annabeth was like. He swallowed and looked at the cookie contemplatively. "Hey Annabeth?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," he smiled. "A lot."

"You're welcome," she said, before whacking her tutee on the upside of his head. "And that's for the post-it. What idiot asks someone to forget about something like _that_?"

Percy zoned out, half-listening to her rant about his stupidity, half- chewing his cookie. It was mostly the cookie, but she didn't need to know that.


	8. 3300 Main Street

Note: Short chapter is short. Obnoxious title is obnoxious. Awkward to write scenes are awkward. Now, with that in mind, let's touch on some key points in the story.

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* * *

STRANGER DANGER!**

Today was a surprisingly boring day. Then again, a little boring was just what Percy's life needed right now.

Rain pattered off his umbrella, sliding down its sides while the teen made his way down the streets, bustling past the crowd as New Yorkers do. He had to be at his mom's office by quarter to five. She'd been getting stricter on curfews and meeting times lately, at least now, Percy knew why. So with that thought in mind, he picked up his speed and rushed through the sidewalk traffic.

But of course, something had to come along and get him into trouble. That something came in the form of a particularly shady alleyway that just happened to catch Percy's eye.

Two strangers huddled together in the narrow space. They spoke in hushed words and moved with guarded actions. The whole scene just reeked of less than legal intentions. Percy was just about to turn and leave when his traitorous foot knocked over a trash can.

Its sonorous clang rang out and suddenly, Percy had two pairs of suspicious eyes following his every movement.

A gruff voice barked a question out as Percy continued to stare at the dubious exchange. "What're_ you_ looking at?"

"N-nothing!" Percy stuttered. He staggered backwards, feeling his pulse skyrocketing. Instinct catapulted him into a sprint. Three adrenaline filled seconds later, and Percy found arms hooked under his own as his feet slung forward in their momentum. The teen flailed helplessly, locked into a heavy handed grip, his umbrella falling onto the pavement with quiet clacks. "I didn't see a thing!"

"Of course not," the voice said, a slight Asian accent clipping at his speech. Palpable tension settled while the rain soaked the both of them through. Percy's struggling slowed, his cold wet clothes sapping the strength out of him as he was dragged into the ally. "That uniform...you're from CHB!"

The vehemence in his statement shocked Percy. He didn't know that CHB had any enemies. Curiosity dotted his growing fear. RIP common sense. "What's it to you?"

"You shouldn't be here kid," he said. "This is Titan territory."

"Ethan!" called another, more reproachful voice. "Let him go. He doesn't know anything."

"'Let him go' he says," the first voice, Ethan, mocked. "You're way too soft. CHB scum need to know their place."

The footsteps came closer and Percy felt Ethan's grip loosen. Castellan's voice turned frigid as it sounded behind them. "Don't cause a scene Ethan. You could start a brawl if you want, but I don't think the Headmaster would like that. So, _let him go_."

"Screw you Castellan," Ethan swore as he shoved his captive to the ground.

Percy's face met pavement in a not so happy marriage. A groan escaped him as he pushed himself up to a sitting position. There was someone kneeling down next to him, face impassive behind gold coloured sunglasses. Percy gasped and scrambled away, his movements fuelled by distrust. "Get up, are you ok?"

"Yeah, I think so," Percy answered, turning to his apparent saviour. He couldn't pick up many details in the dim light, but the other guy looked older than him. "Thanks..."

"No problem," Castellan said as he yanked Percy to his feet. "You've got a nasty scrape on your face by the way."

"What?" Percy exclaimed. He brought a hand to his face and cursed as it came away smeared in crimson blood. "My mom's gonna skin me alive."

"I highly doubt that," Castellan chuckled weakly. He cocked his head to the side and gave a contemplative hum. "You're going to draw some attention walking around like with that much blood on your face. Well, can't have that. Come on kid, you're coming with me."

"Wait what?" the teen repeated, backing away as Castellan came closer. "The hell I'm going with you! Your friend just beat me up!"

Castellan rocked back on his heels and shot his hand out, clasping it around Percy's wrist. "Well technically, the sidewalk messed your face up. Not to mention, you're still in Titan territory. Go around walking with blood on your face, and that won't be the first 'scrape' you'll be getting."

Percy weighed his options. He could either try to clean himself up in some McDonald's and risk getting the police called on him for having a bloody face, OR go with the maybe-dangerous stranger who would ward off the...'Titans'.

Screw Stranger Danger, he'd rather go with Mysterious-golden-shades-dude than face the wrath of his mother picking him up from the precinct. Percy could handle himself in a fight. Really, he could.

"Fine," Percy relented, tugging at Castellan's vice grip. "Just get me to the Newsprint Office on Hastings before quarter to five."

"Whatever you say half-blood," Castellan said, hauling Percy out of the shadowed alley and onto the main sidewalk.

"Wait my umbrella!" Percy exclaimed, scanning the ground for his favourite solid blue umbrella. A groan escaped him as he spied it, crumpled and broken on the ground. That Ethan guy must have stepped on it on his way out. "Ugh, wait what did you call me?"

"You're new to this aren't you?" the blonde remarked. Castellan led Percy through the crowd and into a sub street as he elaborated. "Anyone who gets into CHB is a half-blood."

"A half what now?" Percy blinked as the chilly rain numbed his face. They stepped back into the pale sunshine while Percy squinted, readjusting his eyes to the brightness. It was then that he noticed Castellan's jacket, coloured burgundy and accented gold. 'LORD CRONUS INSTITUTION' was inscribed onto its back in glossy gold thread, a sinister looking scythe emblazoned underneath.

"Well I _could_ use the original term if that would help you understand," Castellan sighed. Their shoes squelched noisily as they entered a high rise apartment. The concierge glared at the watery footprints the two teens had tracked in, but didn't say a word at the sight of Castellan. "To put it simply kid, students at CHB are bastards."

That comment struck home. Percy wrenched his arm back and stopped walking. "Where do you get off saying that?"

Castellan turned to face the younger teen and raised an eyebrow. "No offense kid, but it's true. Everyone in that school of yours was born out of wedlock, which of course is what the definition of bastard is."

"So half-blood's what you call us instead?" Percy asked. He was still upset at the remark and wary of the blonde.

"The alternative didn't seem to get very positive reactions as you can imagine," Castellan answered, plopping down onto a couch. He reached into his bag and pulled out an old grey hoodie. "Here, wipe your face on that."

"Thanks," Percy muttered as the blonde tossed it to him. The garments edges were frayed and tattered, but at least it was dry. He rolled it into a ball and pressed it to his face. "How do you know all this?"

"It's common knowledge," the other replied. "Some big hot shot business man, or woman, gets into a scandal, and then the kid that comes out from it gets put into CHB. Naturally, none of the kids really ever meet both of their parents because the business-y one's too busy to care."

"So all the...half-bloods get put into CHB automatically?" Percy asked, remembering the past years he'd spent hopping from school to school.

"Of course not," Castellan answered. "There are only twelve important enough people in the business world who can send their kids to CHB, and that's only if they find them. All the other half-bloods just have to pray that they're lucky enough to get in through the entrance exam."

Percy didn't ask what would happen to those who didn't pass the exam. He knew what it was like to keep running away from the enemies you couldn't see. He'd lived that life until his mom had married Gabe. "Well what're you then?"

"Me?" the blonde repeated. He lifted his shades and pushed them back, revealing a long jagged scar that slashed through his left eye, reaching down to halfway past his cheek. Castellan turned his blue eyes, upturned at the edges, to Percy and grinned an unnerving grin. "I'm somewhere in between."

Questions bounced around Percy's mind, but he decided not to pry. This _was_ a stranger after all. What business did he have knowing Castellan's life story. He flipped his phone out and glanced at it: 4:16pm. If he wanted to do what he wanted to do then he'd need to get going.

"Hey," Percy called, chucking the hoodie back at Castellan. "I've got to go. Thanks for the help. Maybe I'll see you around."

"Kid, if you stay good, you shouldn't be seeing me around," Castellan said cryptically. "And a word of advice, maybe take the CHB jacket off while you're walking around here."

"Right," Percy agreed as he walked off, choosing not to comment on the first part of Castellan's reply. "Bye then Castellan, hope I never see you again."

"Likewise kid," Castellan replied. "And try and forget my name would you?"

But Percy didn't hear him as a crowd of people bustled in, drowning the words out with their chatter.

The black-haired teen made his way to the counter and faced the middle-aged concierge. "Excuse me, but could I use your phone directory?"

The man's mouth pressed into a thin line as he bent down to retrieve the item. He didn't say a word as he dumped the fat book of yellow pages in front of Percy, who was too busy concentrating to notice anyway.

He flipped through the pages carefully, because sometimes his brain did funny things to the letters. His eyes scanned through the P section, finally resting on the name he was looking for. Shaky fingers scribbled the address and phone number down. Percy didn't think that he'd want to see him again so soon, but...there were more questions to be answered.

The teen flipped his phone out again, for once having some foresight, and sent two text messages.

_To: Mom_

_I'll be a bit late getting to your office._

_Something came up, but don't worry I'm fine._

_Text you when I'm done._

_~Love, Percy_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_To: Annabeth_

_If my mom contacts you somehow, tell her that I'm fine._

_If she freaks out at you, tell her that you saw me studying in the library or something._

_~Thanks_

And with that he stepped out onto the streets. Turning a sharp right he began to walk. The rain was starting to freeze him, but he didn't dare wear his jacket. A few minutes had passed before his phone buzzed to life in his pocket.

_Fr: Annabeth_

_What are you doing?_

His fingers tapped furiously at the number pad as he replied.

_To: Annabeth_

_Getting some answers._

BUZZ, an immediate reply.

_Fr: Annabeth_

_Do not plunge thyself too far in anger._

_~William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well_

Percy stared at the text for a few moments as he waited for the crosswalk and shut his phone with a flick of the wrist as its GO light flashed overhead. The teen walked a few more blocks before taking out the address yet again.

**Mar N. Posei**

**President of Posei Sea Trading Corp.**

**3300 Main Street**

**

* * *

**Edit: Just to clarify, because I got an anonymous review on it, I DO know how Kronos is spelled. Cronus is another depiction of his name, and actually a more commonly used one seeing as MS Word doesn't underline it in red :D**  
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	9. Oh he wishes that was all it was

Note: I've no excuse for the month long hiatus. Unless life counts, which it doesn't. Everyone else has that too and they're updating...*shame*

**

* * *

THE 30TH FLOOR**

The chilling deluge had finally abated somewhat, Percy noticed as he craned his head up to face the imposing height of the building that was Posei Sea Trading Corporation. Not like it mattered much to the teen. If anything, the tingling pinpricks of rain that hailed down only helped to boost Percy's nerve.

He walked in, after troubling himself momentarily with a tricky revolving door, and squelched through the foyer. Watery footprints trailed behind him, every step drawing looks from passerby. Percy tried to ignore them, instead making a b-line to the receptionist's table.

"Excuse me," the teen asked, his voice as polite as he could make it. "I'm wondering if it's possible for me to see Don—um...Mr. Posei?"

The receptionist peered at him over her thick rimmed glasses, putting down the pencil she'd been scribbling with. "Do you have an appointment?"

"I'm his son," Percy declared. "I didn't think I'd need an appointment."

"His son?" she scoffed. "Sorry, but I find that hard to believe."

Percy wrung the hem of his dripping school shirt with unease. He wasn't used to the idea of having a father and having to say it out loud was just _weird_. But still, he had to get in and talk to Don Posei. Percy just didn't think that he could face his mom as he was now: confused and irritated at everything he didn't know. "But it's _true_..."

"Look," the receptionist said, picking her pencil back up and scribbling into a notepad. "Mr. Posei is too busy to see anyone without an appointment, especially some random kid coming off the streets."

"But ma'am, it's _true_," Percy pleaded. Why wouldn't anyone believe him? "He even came to my school a few days ago!"

"I find that highly unlikely," she told him, waving her hand as if to shoo him away. "Now, please leave or I will have to call security."

Indignation bubbled up in Percy. What was the point of finding out who his dad was if he could never see him anyway? But before he could say anything, another, deeper voice cut into their conversation.

"There will be no need for that."

The receptionist fumbled her pencil as she stood to greet the newcomer. "Mr. Posei, good afternoon sir!"

Posei? The name rattled through Percy's head, not registering with the image it was associated with. This guy sure as heck wasn't his dad. He looked like he was in his late twenties and wore a light tan suit over a bright blue dress shirt. "This isn't Don Posei."

"That's my father's corporate nickname," the stranger said. There was an undertone of something in his voice, Percy just couldn't put his finger on it. "I'm his son."

_Well so am I,_ Percy thought to himself.

"I'm sorry for the boy Mr. Posei, he was just leaving," the receptionist warbled, clearly flustered at Mr. Posei's presence.

"There's no need for that," the suited man repeated. "I'll take him up to my office."

"You mean he's _actually_ Don Posei's-," the receptionist started before the stranger silenced her with a pointed stare. "I'm sorry sirs, good afternoon again and have a good day."

"Let's go," Mr. Posei ordered, turning on his heel and expecting Percy to follow.

Of course, as confused as he was, that's exactly what the teen did.

The two walked down a particularly long hallway in an awkward silence. At least people weren't staring at him anymore, Percy noticed. In fact they seemed to be avoiding any and all eye contact. Percy and his maybe-half-brother stepped into an express elevator and watched its doors ding shut, sending them on an even _more_ awkward ride to the 30th floor.

"So," Percy started. He really wished that the elevator music wasn't so gaudy. With nothing else to start conversation, he decided to run with that thought. "Pretty awful tune playing, huh?"

All Percy got for his icebreaker was a stoic side glance. "I'll thank you to not comment on my cello."

"Well when I say awful, I mean it in a good way," Percy amended. Drawing on one of his grammar sessions with Annabeth he added: "You see that's what teenagers do nowadays. It's like how we use 'fail' as a noun."

"Perseus, we will talk once in my office and no sooner," he informed the teen.

Percy felt his cheeks redden at the telling off. "We aren't going to dad's office?"

"Father's out of town on a business meeting," Mr. Posei replied. The doors slid open with as a recorded voice announced that they'd arrived on the executive floor. "Come along Perseus, we have a lot to discuss."

Mr. Posei's patronizing tone grated on Percy's nerves. This visit was definitely not going so well. But the teen kept his thoughts to himself as they stopped in front of a stark white door, a chrome name plate adorning it.

**Mr. Triston Posei**

**Chief Operating Officer**

"Um, I think they misspelled your name," Percy said, squinting at the letters to make sure he'd read them right. "They said Trist_o_n instead of Trist_a_n."

"That is not the utility staff's fault. Father was simply not himself when he was signing my birth certificate," Triston muttered. He ushered his half-brother inside, swinging the door shut behind them with a resounding _click_.

"Dad spelled your name wrong on your birth certificate?" Percy asked. Triston didn't respond and the teen took that as a cue to drop the subject.

They sat facing each other across a small coffee table as the older of the two busied himself with rifling through a briefcase he'd pulled out from nowhere. So with nothing else to do, Percy's mind wandered, scanning their surroundings with fidgety shifts of his head. He took in the room's black, white, and teal motif. Nothing really stood out in terms of decor but...wait a minute, what was that? Triston seemed like a pretty boring guy, not really someone who looked like he cared to have family pictures in his office. Yet there was the exception to the paradigm Percy had set for his half-brother: a single photograph, encased in a varnished wooden frame. A family of three stared out from the snapshot. One of them was a woman he didn't recognize, but there was no mistaking who the two men were. He knew the color their irises bore; after all, his were sea green too.

"I'm assuming you know the peculiar conditions of your birth?"

Percy snapped out of his reverie, the picture still so fresh in his mind, and looked to Triston. "Conditions?"

Triston Posei gave an exasperated sigh, as if dealing with Percy was an irritating and protracted affair that wasn't worth his time. Coincidentally, that was exactly what the heir to Posei Sea Trading Corp. thought. "Perseus, you were born out of wedlock. By law, that means that you have no right to be here."

"What?" Percy asked, incredulous at the statement. He had no right to visit his dad? What kind of messed up law was _that_?

"As an illegitimate child and a minor," Triston continued, regarding Percy with a painfully patronizing look. "You have no hold or standing in this company. The only money you could get from this place would be the pennies at the bottom of the wishing fountain. So please take your leave before Father comes back and sees your pitiful face. He doesn't need to be reminded of his mistake."

Not all of this was true of course, but Percy, the gullible goof he was, seemed to think so. Mistake...he'd be lying if he said he'd never thought of the word before. In school, with friends, and apparently at life, all he was and all he'd done...was a mistake. But there was no time to think about it now. He had to think of a witty, sarcastic comeback for his dear half-brother. Percy pushed his cesspool of negativity aside and mustered up all the eloquence (which wasn't much he had to admit) he had in his body. He was just about to speak when—

"Triston! Could you _please_ tell me where your errant father is?" a voice boomed. The door swung open and in walked a tall grim-faced man. His pitch black hair was slicked back, contrasting horribly with his deathly pale skin. "How does my company rack up this much in freight tax? Didn't we agree on a family discount?"

It was then that he noticed Percy, mouth half-open and witty remark dead on his tongue. Instead, what tumbled out of his traitorous mouth was: "You look like Snape from Harry Potter."

Needless to say, Professor Snape did not take kindly to that. "Triston, this is?"

"No one to be concerned about Uncle Mort," Triston replied as he got up from his seat. He grabbed Percy by the arm and hauled him to his feet. "In fact, he was just leaving."

Percy shook his brother off and got up on his own. He was just slinging his backpack on when he noticed he'd completely soaked the ottoman he had just vacated. Before he could stop himself, an involuntary apology slipped out. "Sorry I wet the couch thing."

"No matter," Triston said, though his demeanour said otherwise. "I'm sure you don't accidentally wet things often."

"Hey!" Percy said, realizing the double meaning to the sentence, but Triston had closed the door by then. The teen let out an aggravated groan and kicked the chrome door with a vehement "damn it!"

"Keep your voice down or security will come running," a quiet voice told him.

Percy turned to someone leaning against the opposite wall of the hallway. She was a slight girl, with olive toned skin who might have been one, maybe two, years younger than Percy. The teen took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

"So how do you know Triston?" mystery girl asked.

"He's my brother," Percy answered; the word felt unfamiliar on his tongue and left him feeling messed up inside.

"Oh, I didn't know the he had a brother," she commented, twirling a stray lock of brown-black hair. "I'm Bianca by the way, nice to meet you."

"I'm Percy," he reciprocated, backing away from his half-brother's room. Bianca seemed horribly out of place in the middle of the 30th floor's hallway; then again, with his damp, rumpled up uniform, Percy probably did too. "So what're you doing here?"

"My dad needed to see Triston," Bianca answered.

Percy thought back to Professor Snape barging in and found himself comparing him to the meek girl who stood before him. "_That's_ your dad?"

"Yup, Mr. Mort Sedah, owner and CEO of some kind of big morgue company," Bianca stated with an awkward smile. At Percy's disbelieving look she added, "We take after our mom."

"We?" Percy parroted, looking left and right for another person.

The smile grew wider as Bianca giggled a bit. "My little brother's in the bathroom."

But before the conversation could go any further, Percy heard the most shocking, unexpected thing. Soft and questioning, a voice drifted towards him from one end of the hall. He paled and pinched himself, wishing it was a nightmare. No, no, no, NO!

"Percy?" the voice kept repeating.

The teen forced himself to look to the voice's source and felt all his heart sink and stomach drop. There she was, silhouetted by the harsh office lights and hand hovering over her mouth in shock. Even from this far away, Percy knew who she was. Of course he recognized her, how could he not?

"Percy, who's that?" Bianca asked, pushing off of the wall to stand next to her new friend.

"It's my mom," Percy answered miserably, wondering _how_ she'd even gotten here. He saw the surprise leave her and the hard steeliness of her 'parenting-face' settle in. Percy chewed his lip as she made her way towards them and tried not to think about the fact that all that was separating his entire family was a chrome door.

"She seems mad," Bianca noticed. "Did you get an F or something?"

Sally Jackson stopped right in front of the two, her mouth set into a stern line. "Oh he _wishes_ that was all it was."

* * *

Note: Next chapter will be from an interesting POV! I for one am excited!


	10. Pick him up in an hour

**DEFECTION**

"Annabeth?" Luke called. He watched his girlfriend's face contort with worry, her eyes glued to the screen of her cell phone. "What's wrong?"

"One of my friends is getting himself into trouble...again," she huffed, texting away a reply.

Luke heard the phone beep, announcing a successfully sent message. "What did you say?"

"To him? Nothing much," Annabeth replied. Her phone beeped again as she added, "To his mom, significantly more."

Luke leaned over and peeked over her shoulder. "You're telling on him?"

"Luke, he's going to see his dad again," she told him. Luke could almost see the gears turning in her head. "The last time they met, it didn't end well. Percy isn't used to the whole half-blood thing yet."

"He's going to find out you told on him," Luke predicted. The two shuffled closer to each other, a late autumn chill settling in. The old bench creaked softly under them as cars shot past their bus stop. "And let me tell you Annabeth, teenage guys aren't very reasonable or forgiving when they get found out."

"I'm well aware of that," Annabeth smiled, leaning onto his shoulder. "But Percy doesn't think straight once he's got an idea into his thick head."

Luke could see Annabeth's bus slow to a stop at a red light two blocks down and frowned; they hadn't been spending much time together. "You keep talking like that and I'll have to go and 'meet' this Percy kid. You've even got his mom's number!"

"I've got her number because I'm Percy's tutor you goof," she said, shoving him away with a laugh. She got up and kissed her boyfriend lightly before going off to stand next to the stop sign. "You have nothing to worry about Luke. We promised to always be there for each other remember?"

"I remember," Luke answered, fiddling with a trinket dangling off a keychain on his belt loop. Then, just to annoy her he added. "Love you Annie."

"Ugh don't call me that," the blonde ordered, making a less than attractive face. "Nobody calls me that."

"I could start calling you that," Luke joked. At her very eloquent and unflattering response, he dropped it. "Ok, ok I'll stick to Annabeth."

"Good boy," she praised as the bus drove in and its doors hissed open. She stepped on and waved a goodbye to Luke as the bus pulled away.

Luke waved back, Annabeth's signature ponytail the last he saw of her, and stretched languidly in his seat. Now that he was free for the rest of the day, maybe he could pay a visit to Caduceus?

Obnoxious beeping sounded from his pocket accompanied by telltale vibrations that meant he'd just gotten a text. Flipping his phone open, he read the message and knit his eyebrows together. It looked like his visit would have to wait.

* * *

"Come on Castellan," Ethan Nakamura huffed.

Luke followed obediently, shrugging his Lord Cronus Institution blazer on. He needed to be dressed in complete uniform to meet with the Headmaster after all. "You're not still sore about earlier are you? It was just _one_ half-blood."

"One too many if you ask me," Ethan muttered darkly.

They walked in silence through the halls and Luke couldn't help thinking about what Ethan would have done to that half-blood if he hadn't stopped him. The question churned in his gut, wanting to be asked, but Luke held his tongue. You didn't talk about those things in the halls of the Institution; it was just asking for trouble.

"Get in," Ethan told Luke with military importance.

"See you later Nakamura," Luke said.

Of course, he didn't get a goodbye back.

He was reaching for the door when it swung open on its own, a brunette walking out of it and into him. She was walking fairly quickly; it made for a spectacular crash.

"Sorry," Luke apologized, offering her a hand up.

"It's alright," she mumbled, brushing a few stray strands of long brown hair away.

Luke helped her to her feet and noticed a bracelet glinting on her wrist. A scythe dangled from it, the Institute and Headmaster's symbol. "Nice bracelet."

"Oh thanks," the brunette muttered, brushing imaginary dust off her clothes. "Sorry I have to go, bye."

Luke would have pondered more on the brunette and the odd sense of familiarity she stirred but, the Headmaster was waiting, and it was never good to keep the Headmaster waiting.

So he let the issue go and stepped into the office. Only to be greeted by a rather...large and denim obsessed receptionist.

"Hello deary," she crooned, lacing her fingers together. Her nails were painted acid green, and it really wasn't her colour.

"Hi," Luke greeted, trying to ignore the incessant barking that had started up. "I'm here to see the Headmaster."

"Oh you must be Luke Castellan! Well, the Headmaster will be ready for you in a moment," she told him. Luke heard something rattle under her desk where he suspected the barking was coming. "Don't mind Sonny, he's just mad because I had to crate him this afternoon."

"Thank you...," Luke started, reading her name plaque. "Ms. Echidna."

"Oh it's no problem," she smiled, leaning closer over her desk.

And so began the most awkward fifteen seconds of Luke's life, punctuated with Sonny's angry yapping. There had never been a better representation for the term 'cougar' than that receptionist's stare.

The transfer student was almost glad to hear Headmaster Oras Titanus' voice.

"Castellan, come in," he called, his voice overflowing with authority.

"Bye Lukey!" Ms. Echidna called.

Luke took a page from Ethan's book and left her without a reply.

The teen walked into the Headmaster's annexed room, locking eyes with the highest authority in the school. Mr. Titanus sat behind a wide desk, smartly dressed in black formal attire as he always was. "Good afternoon Sir."

"Well Castellan, do you have any idea as to why you're here?" the Headmaster asked, setting down a sheaf of papers he'd been shuffling through.

"No Sir," Luke replied truthfully as the Headmaster pulled out a folder.

"That," Mr. Titanus said, holding the folder out to Luke. "Is the latest news on your mother's condition."

Luke felt his insides drop at the mention of his mom. How did the Headmaster even find out about her? The teen stayed defiantly still for a few moments but eventually moved forward to take the offered information. Those golden eyes were just as unnerving as Luke remembered. He flipped the folder open and gave a tiny gasp at the document's header. He reined in his excitement and forced his voice into a steady tone. "This isn't a hoax is it? It wouldn't be the first..."

"I assure you this is entirely possible. Clinical trials have already started," the Headmaster informed him. The man smiled, Luke was practically shaking at the possibilities; he would probably do anything at this point. "I would be willing to pull some strings. Ms. Castellan would be on the list for a trial."

"How high's the success rate?" the teen asked, his voice growing frantic with excitement. This would mean so much. If this worked then he wouldn't have to set foot into Caduceus ever again. He and his mom could bid farewell to that hellhole.

"Very high," Mr. Titanus reported. He leaned back into his swivel chair and added. "Yet of course, there is something you must do."

Luke wasn't surprised. There was always a catch; that's just how life worked. "What do I have to do?"

"Simply fully enrol into Lord Cronus Institution," the Headmaster announced. He knew the boy wouldn't refuse. The boy _couldn't_ refuse.

"Why do you want me?" Luke asked. His common sense told him to be suspicious, but that was slowly losing out to the allure this cure presented him.

"You are a special child Luke," the man started. "What has CHB done for you to earn your loyalty? The Institution would suit you better, don't you think?"

Luke felt his left eye wince at the Headmaster's honeyed words. An old memory floated back up to his consciousness, of sneers and taunts that his mother garnered, of bullies who called names and threw punches, and of the years he and his mom had waited before Luke's dad had come back. After nine years of hell, the pompous jerk had put him into CHB and his mother into Caduceus.

After that wonderful trip down memory lane, the answer came with little hesitation. "It's a deal."

"Welcome to the community," Mr. Titanus said with an eerie grin, like an animal that had just cornered its prey. "I will take care of the paperwork. Right now, I need you to run an errand for me."

"Your students run your errands?" Luke asked.

"Everyone helps out in the Institution," the Headmaster informed his student. "It's all for a greater good."

Luke didn't question the oddness of that statement, chalking the creepy factor up to his new Headmaster's personality. "Ok then, what do you want me to do?"

"I have an important package that needs to be delivered. Echidna will hand it to you along with the address," Mr. Titanus said, an air of finality in his words.

"Why don't you just Fed Ex it?" Luke offered.

The Headmaster gave his newest student a contemptuous look before plastering a smile over it. "I trust my students more than those blue collar oafs. Now, move along Luke. You are wasting time."

At that obvious order to leave, Luke stepped back into the outer office to have a hopefully short chat with Ms. Echidna.

No dice.

"Oh you're back my dear!" she blurted out a bit too enthusiastically.

"Mr. Titanus wants me to deliver a package," Luke stated, getting to the point. "He said you would have it."

"Oh _that_," she chirped, digging through the piles of paper on her desk. Echidna yanked out a manila envelope and presented it with what she thought was a winning smile. "Here you go honey."

"Thank you," Luke mumbled before jetting out.

The teen was just about to close the door when he heard her call, "Come and visit Lukey!"

_Most kids dreaded the principal's office because they thought they were in trouble. I just had to have the creepy receptionist, _Luke thought to himself as he read the address on the envelope.

ICARUS MOTOR SERVICES

500 South Delta Drive

South Delta was a long commute away...looks like he wouldn't get to visit his mom today after all.

* * *

"Ms. Castellan?" a nurse called softly, knocking on the patient's door. "Ms. Castellan your son just called."

"Oh really?" May Castellan echoed. She sat in her single bed, legs stretched out in front of her. "What did he say?"

"He says he's sorry he can't come and visit today," the nurse reported.

"Visit? That's silly," May laughed. Her laughter was light and airy, almost as if she didn't know what she was laughing at. "Luke's still at the daycare, he shouldn't be visiting anybody. In fact I'm supposed to pick him up in an hour."

* * *

Note: Kronos' first name in my story, "Oras", means "time" in my country's language (Filipino). So that explains that. Also, next chapter an important event happens. It's possible to guess what if you've been reading carefully :D

Edit: FFN deleted this chapter for some reason. Sorry for double posting!


	11. A Shuddering Breath

Note: Brace yourself.

**

* * *

IT'S YOU AND ME AGAINST THE WORLD**

The di Angelos had bad luck with traveling. It was a very adamant fact.

They took forever to get anywhere and motion sickness was unavoidable. It was worst with flying though. There had only ever been on one flight, but no one really talked about that; too many bad memories.

Yet despite their horrible history with road trips and the like, the di Angelo siblings found themselves loading onto one of their father's sleek, black, overly-expensive cars.

"But Daaad, we love visiting the offices with you," Nico whined, picking at his father's silver cuff links. "Really, we do!"

"Nico, you _know_ why you have to go," Mort Sedah told his son, exasperation creeping slowly into his voice. "There are a few people here I don't want you two to meet. So you and your sister will be going off to the summer house for a little vacation while I sort things out."

"But it's November!" Nico exclaimed, gesturing wildly at the sky.

Bianca thought about the situation. She was twelve after all, a whole two years older than Nico; Dad couldn't pull the wool over her eyes. "Nico come on, you're just cold and sleepy. The sooner we get going the sooner you can take a nap in the car. Go and help the driver load our suitcases or something."

"It wasn't _my_ idea to wake up at 6:00am this morning," Nico grumbled.

Bianca watched her little brother make his way to the car's trunk before turning sternly to face her dad. She was sure she knew why he was being so cranky. "Is this about me talking to Percy yesterday?"

Mr. Sedah rubbed his temples, wondering how someone that young could be so perceptive. "No Bianca, it's just some trouble in the business."

"Dad, you deal with dead people, what kind of trouble can they give you?" Bianca pointed out impertinently. She gasped and slapped a hand to her mouth. Ohhh, why did she have to go and say that? Now she'd probably get grounded once they got to wherever they were going.

The CEO of _Riposi in Pace_ looked at his daughter with mild surprise. Bianca was always a shy girl, too quiet to be noticed half the time. She'd always taken care of Nico and followed her father like a good, obedient girl...ever since the accident anyway. If she started getting stressed about the situation, so would her brother. And Mort Sedah certainly did not need hysterical children to deal with.

"You're right Bianca," Mr. Sedah sighed, bending down to her level. "That Percy boy is _part_ of it, but there are bigger things going on. Things I don't want you and your brother involved with."

The girl stood quietly, looking eye to eye with her father. She had a strange feeling about all this; it told her that here was the safest place. She and her brother were _supposed_ to stay with their dad. That was how families worked.

"Bianca!" Nico's voice rang out, cutting into Bianca's thoughts. "There's this funny dent in the car!"

"A dent? But the car's brand new," the driver commented, slamming the trunk shut after loading the last of the luggage. "A new model, the Talos they call it."

"It's a _funny_ dent too!" the ten year old emphasized. "It's like a weird triangle thing..."

"It doesn't matter," Mr. Sedah said. "I'll have it fixed later. You two need to get going if you're going to make it to the house before lunch."

"Ok," Bianca said, relieved she didn't get chastised. She herded her kid brother to the car doors, glancing at the odd triangular dent as she nudged him along. It was almost as if someone had carved it in, like a signature. "Nico, stop minding dents. We gotta go, say bye to Dad."

Nico pried himself away from his dent and walked back to his dad, who was still bent down to his children's level. "Bye Dad," the boy said with a hug.

"Bye Nico, Bianca," the adult reciprocated, pulling his daughter in. Straightening up he added, "drive safe."

"Bye Dad," Bianca echoed, still feeling uneasy about leaving. "See you soon."

And with that, the di Angelos piled into the car. Nico sprawled himself over the back seat while Bianca watched her dad grow smaller and smaller in the distance, that strange feeling growing worse by the second.

* * *

They say when you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. Well, as their Talos skidded on the asphalt and flipped over itself, Bianca could only think of snapshots. Unimportant, everyday things flicked through her mind like a disjointed cartoon: Nico asking to go into a 7/11 to see if there were any Mythomagic cards left, their dad telling them not to play in the coffins, that one time she'd accidentally broken an urn.

Then came more recent things: the old lily scent of Dad's weird cologne as he'd hugged them both that morning, watching the scenery shift from city to countryside on the freeway, the surprised expression plastered onto Nico's face as the car's breaks failed.

_CRASH_

They had finally stopped moving, crashed into the railings that bordered the roads.

At first there was silence. Bianca stared haplessly, still strapped to her seat by her safety belt, at the driver's seat in front of her, too shocked by the bloodstains to even move. Then slowly, she heard ringing in her ears and the faint sound of someone calling out her name. Snapping out of her stupor, she swung her head to where she thought the sounds were coming from and almost retched.

Laying in a crumpled heap on the upturned car's ceiling, was Nico. There was blood in trailing from his head, making his hair stick together in sticky clumps.

Frantic, Bianca flailed, trying to get to her brother's prone form. More of her hearing returned, and she wished she'd stayed deaf.

"Bianca?" Nico called, over and over again, each time weaker than the last.

Remembering her safety belt, Bianca unlatched it and let gravity bring her down. Her trembling limbs did little to cushion her fall as she landed ungracefully next to Nico. She scrambled into a crawl, ignoring the dull throbbing the adrenaline was quelling. Pulling herself closer to him, Bianca whispered his name, too scared to touch him. "Shh, it's ok Nico, it's ok. Don't worry, people are coming, we'll get help soon."

"Bianca...," Nico repeated, interrupting her slew of reassurances. "I hear mom."

Memories assaulted Bianca's already traumatized mind. The terrifying feeling of falling through the sky, knowing nothing would catch you when you landed. Mom's furrowed brow as she strapped oxygen masks to their faces. Nico asking if mom was going to get one too.

Worst of all, the pallid colour she'd turned once the plane had performed its emergency landing.

Bianca found herself seeing that same colour on Nico.

She put a hand to his face, straining to feel the warmth under his skin that meant her little brother was still with her. "Nico, no matter what, don't go to her. You've got me don't you? And Dad! Please Nico, you don't need to go yet."

So many times in her life, Bianca had wished her brother would just shut up. She'd give _anything_ to take that all back now. He could talk about Hades' best stats for all she cared. Bianca couldn't help herself, she dragged Nico's body towards herself, resting his head on her lap.

No matter what they said to each other, no matter what they did to piss the other off, it had always been just the two of them. Stealing biscotti from the cookie jar, playing hide and seek in Dad's office, holding hands during Mom's funeral...

Voices, Bianca heard voices. "Nico, Nico hang in there! Can't you hear them? They're getting help! We're going to be ok Nico...we're going to be ok."

The car doors gave a groan just as Nico gave a shuddering breath.

* * *

Note: Early update for Christmas! Happy holidays my dear readers! Updates will be sporadic during the break, but definitely expect at least one a week. Ahem, reviews = update = finding out what happened to the di Angelos


	12. But it was the truth

**DU SOLEIL ET DE LA LUNE**

A blonde man toyed absentmindedly with his Blackberry, sitting on one of the many couches the Starbucks had to offer. As he sat, he wondered how many people had their eyes on him. After all, even with the sunglasses, hoodie and scarf, someone this radiant was _bound_ to attract some attention.

"Paulie?"

"Hey Rachel," he greeted, turning to the approaching redhead. "Is the kid with you?"

"Nice disguise you've got there," the teen commented as she nudged her companion forward. "Paulie, meet Percy Jackson. Percy, meet Paulo du Soleil, the CEO and owner of Chariot."

"Hey there Percy," Mr. Soleil waved, flashing his million-watt smile. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be having much effect on the surly looking boy that stood next to his redheaded friend.

Percy was not happy. He had twenty minutes to get home, thanks to his new curfew, and Rachel had abducted him from the bus stop. After the Posei incident, he and his mom had been on rocky terms. If he broke his grounding on the first day back at school, there'd be hell to pay. Staring at the head of Chariot, one of the most high end car names in the business, was not how he wanted to spend his limited Monday afternoon. "Hello, sir."

"Call me Paulie," he suggested, motioning for the two to sit down. "So dude, I hear you've been having some problems with Don Posei."

"...what?" Percy replied eloquently. What, had everyone known about his dad but him?

"No need to fret," the businessman said, wagging a finger at the two teens. He pulled something out of the baggy folds of his jacket and smacked a relatively thin package of papers onto the table. "I know everything about the situation. Including, something you need to be made aware of."

Leaning forward, Percy saw that the package was actually a newspaper section. Five seconds ago, he could've truthfully said that he'd never seen himself in the papers before. Now he found himself staring at a fuzzy image of himself getting into a cab with a very distraught Rachel. "What the hell is this?"

"Shh, be calm young grasshopper," Paulie cautioned. "There are people about."

"It's last year's incident," Rachel spoke up, unsurprised despite the turn of events.

"I know _that_," Percy huffed. He looked accusingly at her calm demeanour. "But why, after half a year, is this being dug up onto _tomorrow's_ paper?"

Rachel gave a pleading look to her father's acquaintance, maybe Paulie could help with breaking the news? The business man just shrugged back and busied himself with his Blackberry. Apparently, Twitter and Facebook were currently more important than his socially helpless goddaughter. "Because, Percy, back then you were just a normal kid. Now you're Don Posei's illegitimate child who seems to have a history with Dare Enterprise's little _princess_."

Princess. Oh how she hated that word. Rachel felt some of her best friend's irritation melt away. His mouth was still curved into an impressive scowl, but his eyes held sympathy. They both knew how many worthless arguments, sleepless nights, and empty promises her status brought. She was Rachel Dare. It was bad enough that she was going to a _public_ school. Heaven help us all if she decides to have any sense of free will.

"So what're we going to do?" Percy finally asked.

Normal procedure would be to stay low, to lock yourself up until the world forgot. But Rachel couldn't tell him that. No matter the revelation, Percy would always be the boy next door. He wasn't cut out for the drama, prestige and burden that the business world rained down on her every day. No, definitely not. Percy didn't deserve to be forgotten.

"Nothing," Rachel replied, steeling her voice with strength she didn't feel. Again, she looked to her godfather, hoping for his support. This time, he gazed back, and with the faintest of smiles gave a tiny nod.

"Nothing?" Percy echoed. He turned to his friend, seeing a glimmer of the girl that had begged him to take her away all those months ago. The girl who had crumpled under the weight of the world on her shoulders. The girl who had felt more at peace with her life the farther away she got from it. "Rach, are you sure?"

Rachel stared at the boy who'd been her best friend for eight years and unrequited love for two. Green eyes bore into each another, questioning, calculating, imploring: why?

Green the colour of ocean reefs asked: why are you shutting me out?

Green the colour of emerald clovers wondered: why can't you move on?

The unspoken questions rallied back and forth between them, flecked with disjointed memories.

A worried mom.

"_I can't believe you'd do this, Percy," Sally Jackson said, more to herself than to her son._

_Shame burned on his face as she paced restlessly. "I'm sorry Mom, but Rachel needed me."_

_She sighed and leaned on their tiny kitchen table. "Percy, you're loyal to your friends, and that's good, but what you did was wrong. We're lucky Mr. Dare isn't pressing charges for kidnapping."_

A condescending father.

_She stood defiantly as he glared daggers at her. Having a one-on-one talk with him was like standing in front of a firing squad. Peering out the glass curtains of their penthouse apartment, Rachel focused on the New York skyline. Her father's sermon washed over her; the words might as well have gone unspoken. She'd felt his stinging disappointment the second he found her curled up on a bench next to a judgemental Percy._

A defensive friend.

_Rachel disliked her father._

_Rachel liked Percy._

_It should have been obvious who to pick._

_But as they say, 'blood is thicker than water'._

_So when her father gave an ultimatum, and Percy offered another option, better judgement gave into a lifetime's worth of emotions._

"_Rachel, come back home or stay out of it," Dad had said, tiredness and frustration saturating his voice._

_Percy squeezed her hand and whispered, "My mom wouldn't mind you in the house."_

_Rachel didn't remember the exact moment she'd yanked her hand out of her friend's but found herself making her way back to life as Dare enterprise's young heiress._

_Because even when she loved Percy, she knew he didn't love her back._

_At least with family, love was an obligation._

"Well," Paulie coughed, breaking the spell that had wrapped the two teens in a silence. "We'd all best be going. Haven't you got somewhere to be, Percy?"

Percy didn't budge. "Rachel, you're serious? I'm not supposed to do _anything_?"

"That's the plan," she replied, gently ushering her friend out of their booth. "Now get home before your mom starts freaking out."

"Okay...," he muttered. Scooting out of his seat, he slung his backpack onto his shoulder, and sent one last disbelieving look at Rachel. "Bye then."

"See you around," she said, though she probably wouldn't be. For the sake of dousing the press fire, they'd have to avoid each other to any extent possible.

"Sayonara, young grasshopper," Paulie waved.

Percy stood there for a second more before giving his friend a quick, lingering hug.

And with that, he was gone, leaving a red-faced Rachel in his wake.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" her godfather drawled. "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!"

"Please don't, Paulie," Rachel said, stopping him before he got into one of his Shakespearean moods.

"Am I not allowed to comment on your romantic escapades?" he questioned with mock appal.

"No," she answered, amusement peppering the word.

"Well, let me at least get you a drink," he offered. "We can't just sit here and leave without ordering anything."

"A peppermint hot chocolate then," she said as he got up to order. "And thanks for being here, Paulie."

"No problemo," he smiled.

~O~o~O~

Thalia waited restively as her Headmistress flipped through paperwork. Wheelchairs and IVs filled her view and the antiseptic smell of hospitals filled her lungs. Being back in Caduceus was...unsettling.

A nurse approached them carrying Bianca di Angelo's file. "Ms. Diana de Lune?"

"That's me," the Headmistress said, looking up from the stack of admission papers sitting on her lap. She slid the sheaf off her lap and stood. "How is the girl?"

"Bianca is fine," the nurse replied. "Her father is with her right now."

"May I see her? We need to clear some things up for enrolment," Ms. de Lune stated.

"I'm sorry, but she refuses leave her brother's room," the nurse started. "And due to his delicate condition, he's only allowed two visitors at a time. You'd need to persuade Mr. Sedah out if you want to talk."

"Thalia," she addressed. "Go and send Mr. Sedah my way. Stay with the girl if she looks like she needs company."

"Yes ma'am," the student replied as she got up.

Walking through the familiar halls, Thalia was relieved that at least this time, she wasn't the patient.

"Hold the door!" she exclaimed as she watched the elevator door give a jerk. She hurried in and mumbled a quick 'thanks' before pushing the button for the seventh floor.

"Thalia?" called a deep, familiar voice.

Pleasant surprise coursed through her at the sound. "Luke?"

He stood there, signature smirk just as she remembered it. "It's nice to see you again, Thalia."

Something was off with him. "You too, Luke. How are—"

An airy voice cut in. "Luke, who's this?"

A fleeting grimace laced his features. His countenance softened as he turned towards the woman who'd spoken. "This is Thalia, Mom. You remember Thalia?"

"Thalia?" May Castellan echoed, fingers twiddling in her white-blonde hair. "Is she the clever little grey-eyed girl?"

"No, Mom," Luke replied. He gently eased her back into a wheelchair Thalia hadn't seen. "That was Annabeth. She's not a little girl anymore."

"Oh...," May trailed off, clutching her worn down, cherry-red handbag.

Luke sighed and faced his old friend. "So what are you doing in Caduceus?"

_The last time you were here, you were half-dead, _was the silent implication.

"Visiting a soon-to-be Huntington girl," Thalia replied, mentally comparing the fragile person in the wheelchair to vibrant Mrs. Castellan who used to give them ice cold Kool Aid every Saturday.

The obvious question remained unspoken: _what's wrong with your mother?_

"Another Hunter, huh?" Luke mused, leaning onto the wheelchair's handle bars.

"Yeah," Thalia confirmed. Soft beeps sounded as they drew closer to her floor. "How's your new school?"

"It's been good," the blonde replied. The elevator came to a stop as an electronic voice rattled out 'seventh floor'. "I guess I'll be seeing you around then, Thalia."

"Okay," the Hunter replied, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

"Wait!" May cried. Thalia froze, mid-step, at the hysterical cry and turned towards her friend's mother. Mrs. Castellan dug frantically through her handbag, smiling once she found what she was looking for. Plucking the item out, she offered it to the confused girl. "Would you like a peanut butter sandwich, Thalia?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Castellan," Thalia said, smiling at the woman's clouded blue eyes and taking the plastic-wrapped treat. She looked up at Luke for what she suspected would be the last time in a long time as she stepped out of their elevator. "Bye, Luke. Your mom's awesome by the way. How did she know I had to skip lunch today?"

It might not have been the most tactful thing to say, but it was the truth.

* * *

Note: I've learned to stop promising updates, it only makes them come later. Anyway, some development in this chapter. Next up, Nico's condition (I know you're all dying to find out) and Thalia's back story (because EVERYONE has one in Notes :D). Also, May Castellan is the sweetest person to write :)


	13. I can't feel them

**NUMB**

_Knocks on the door, the creak of a chair_

_Voices drift through the air_

_She hears nothing through the rasping breaths_

_That dangle her brother on the edge of death_

They say that the human mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes, we have the illusion of pondering on several things all at once. But really, they're just flashes of different thoughts that go by so fast, you can't tell when one stops and the other begins. We cycle through memories, the good and the bad. One image leads to another and suddenly, you find yourself pulled away by the undercurrent of thought. You drift farther away and farther from reality until you lose yourself in the open waters.

The only problem was: Bianca couldn't keep her head up.

She was drowning, sinking deeper into the depths of guilt that had washed over her. Unanswered questions and stewed emotions wracked her mind. Was this all really happening? Out of all the people on the road that day, why did it have to be their car? After stealing Mom away from them all those years ago, was the world really taking Nico too?

"Unfair," she muttered to herself, throat raspy from lack of use. Bianca glanced at her brother's pallid face and tried to untangle some of the tubes and wires that were attached to his arms, his chest, his everything. Her hands were shaky and fumbled in their unnecessary task. "Why is life so _unfair_?"

"Because life just sucks sometimes," replied an unfamiliar voice.

Startled by the outward prod, Bianca's mind toppled out of its balanced tumult. She felt the reality of their situation come crashing down once again, her chest tightening to squeeze a few more tears out. But after the seemingly endless hours of waiting for Nico's surgery to end, all her tears had dried up; Bianca was left with no way to release the raw feelings that were mulling about her. Instead, she decided to talk. Talking about your feelings was good, right? So with her croaky, unused voice she turned to the spiky haired girl who'd popped into the room and asked, "Who are you?"

"Thalia Grace," the older girl said, stepping forward to sit on the chair Bianca's father had recently vacated. "Assistant head girl of Huntington Girl's Academy. The Headmistress wanted to talk to your dad and he asked me to keep an eye on you."

"I don't need to be babysat," Bianca said weakly.

"Well I'm here to keep an eye on your brother then," Thalia replied, crossing her arms. "From the looks of it, he's better off than you are."

_Better off?_

"How can you say that?" Just to double check, Bianca glanced back at her brother's fragile condition, at his beeping heart rate monitor, at the garish stitches that stretched across his torso, and wondered: how the hell could anyone think he was 'better off'?

"_He's_ not beating himself up about something that obviously wasn't his fault," Thalia mused. She loosened the taught silver tie at her neck and let out a breathy sigh. "And he's on the road to recovery, as the dear doctors call it."

"But what if I'd just told him to buckle up? What if I listened to my gut and just begged to stay with dad? Why didn't I get out of that stupid car and look for help instead of just sitting there like an idiot?" Bianca rattled off every question, thought and statement that had been building up. She'd let go of her brother's hand in favour of gripping the low railing that surrounded his hospital bed. Her knuckles had turned white as she clutched the bar tighter. Her tirade dwindled into a whisper as she forced out the question that bore down on her like the weight of the sky. "What if the last thing I'll have told him was, 'Shut up, Nico'?"

"Don't let what could have happened bother you," the older girl advised. "That's just going to eat at you until you get more holes than Swiss cheese. And are you ever going to get an answer to all your what-if's? Nope, you aren't. So what's the point of asking something that can never be answered?"

"But he's got stitches and concussions!" Bianca went on, not answering the question. "Not to mention a broken rib—"

"And a punctured lung, I know. I read his file," Thalia interrupted, leaning back in her chair. "He'll pull through, don't worry."

"How do you know he'll be okay?" Bianca said, her voice back to its whisper. "The doctors said he only has a thirty four percent chance of surviving."

"That's going _into_ surgery. Now that he's out, all he has to do is knit himself back together," Thalia told her. "Besides, I only had a twelve percent chance, and I kind of landed myself in the hospital on purpose."

But before Thalia's statement could settle, or Bianca could pose the obvious question, they heard a sound.

To Thalia, it sounded like a cat was choking on a hairball.

To Bianca, it was the most hopeful, hacking cough she'd ever heard.

"Nico!" she cried, leaning over her brother. "Nico, are you okay?"

Nico gave a soft groan before his eyes fluttered open. Panic spread across his face at the strange setting he found himself in. Bright white lights glared over him as he looked around for any sense of familiarity. He focused on his sister, standing way too close for comfort, and opened his mouth to say something. Unfortunately, all that came out was a rather unmanly croak.

"Oh God, he's mute," Bianca fretted.

"No, he's just thirsty," Thalia said, holding a cup of ice chips up for the boy to take. "He hasn't actually drunk anything in a while."

Nico reached out to take the cup from the girl-with-the-shockingly-blue-eyes and noticed something on his arm: stitches, the thread stained red with his own blood. He put a hand to his head and felt a mess of bandages wrapped around matted hair. Obnoxious beeps filled the air and Nico saw some kind of machine, beeping faster with every frightened gasp he took.

He croaked again, this time more urgently, before remembering the cup in his hand.

"Drink," Ms. Blue Eyes said while Bianca nodded encouragingly. "You'll be able to talk afterward."

As he downed his cup, Nico felt some tingling.

"The anaesthetics should be wearing off," Thalia informed the two of them. "It'll take a while before it's fully out of his system though."

"Bianca," came Nico's rasping voice.

"Yeah?" Bianca heeded, too overcome with relief to string together full sentences.

Nico looked intensely into his sister's black-brown eyes, the same colour as his, and confessed: "M-my legs, I can't feel them."

* * *

Note: Short chapter because I felt like that'd be a good place to end it. Also, this means you get your Nico-news earlier :) Maybe I'll get the Thalia!Backstory/Percabeth fluff chap out this weekend...but no promises. School's starting to get into that annoying overwhelming stage again :p

Also, I'm curious. How many people actually read the chapter titles?


	14. No way she would ever look back

**WHEN YOU FALL**

_Permanent_

After all the medical jargon and complicated diagnoses had been said, that was all Bianca really understood. The thought of Nico shackled to a wheelchair for the rest of his life...

It did nothing less than crush her.

And it was in Bianca's desolate, forlorn face that Thalia saw herself. The two girls sat together, finding solace in the comforting silence. One wondered about to her family's future. The other remembered her scarring past.

_-O-_

_Sometimes you wake up. _

_-O-  
_

A nine year old girl paced fretfully around the two-room apartment that was her home. Her footsteps made dull thuds on the worn carpeted floor. She took a deep breath, one that smelled faintly of booze and last night's microwave dinner, and forced herself to think straight. Something was wrong. Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

The click and jingle of keys sounded noisily at the door and Thalia rushed to yank it open. She glared at the woman who stood crumpled and red-eyed at the doorway. "Where is he?"

"Gone," Thalia's mother replied, voice devoid of any emotion as she brushed passed her daughter.

"Gone?" the girl parroted softly. Raising her voice, she trailed into their kitchen, where she knew her mother would find refuge in a bottle, and forced the adult to look at her. "You can't just get rid of another _human being._"

Ms. Grace, because no one was ever close enough to call her by first name anymore, sat slumped at the dining table. "He's at the Wolf House."

Thalia felt her world come crashing down around her. "You gave him to _them_?"

The words '_social worker'_ were never spoken in the Grace household. It was an unspoken law that had been in place for as far as anyone could remember. Because even after all the hell they'd gone through, even when the booze ran dry and tensions rose, they were still a family, no matter how broken and tattered they were.

Thalia had put up with it. She'd forged through every lonely Father's day and lackluster Christmas because every birthday her mom would light a candle. Every birthday, she was reaffirmed that someone cared.

But this, this was unacceptable.

"Yes, I gave him to them," Ms. Grace replied, a slur creeping slowly into her voice. The bottle she'd gotten from the cupboard was already a third empty. "Maybe you haven't noticed, Thalia, but this isn't exactly a child friendly environment."

"Who cares if it's not child friendly. It's HOME," Thalia screeched. The reality of the situation was sinking in. She'd likely never see her baby brother ever again. "We're all we've got and you just give him _away?_"

"You only call this home because it's all you've ever known!" Ms. Grace yelled back, tears gathering and blurring her vision. "He can have a better life. He's only a baby. He won't even remember us."

Thalia listened to the excuses and seethed, knowing that her mother was trying to convince the both of them. "If giving your kids away was such a good idea, then why didn't you dump me off sooner?"

"Because," Ms. Grace hiccupped, taking another swig from her bottle. The alcohol loosening her control as the tears fell freely. "I _need_ you, Thalia. Do you think it was easy for me to let Jason go? I can't raise another child, Thalia. I can barely get myself out of bed every morning. If it were up to me, I'd just end it all now. But I've got you and you've got me. We can't lose each other, Thalia. We can't..."

The woman left her drink on the table and inched closer to the only thing that anchored her to life. She ran her hand through her daughter's long, dark hair and sobbed.

They stayed there for what may have been seconds, minutes, or hours.

During all that time, Thalia had made a decision: she was going to run away.

_Need_

Ms. Grace hadn't said "I love you" she'd said "I _need_ you."

The only reason she'd stayed for so long was because of Jason. Now that he was...gone. What else was there?

So sometime in between that night and the next morning, she left.

Thalia packed a bag full of food and all the money she'd saved up, before opening the fire escape and stepping out into the rainy streets of New York. If thirty-two dollars wasn't going to be enough to live, then she'd have to make do.

She stood on the small ledge that extended from their window and wished that their building didn't have a night guard. Otherwise she could have just walked out the easy way. The cold metal of the escape ladder was slippery in the rain as the nine year old planted her foot on the first rung. Maybe it was a sign to turn back. If it was, Thalia paid no heed.

As she climbed lower, she forced herself to think only of the future. Thalia couldn't let herself look back the life she was leaving because she knew that her resolve wasn't that strong.

Amongst the tumult of thought and drum of rain, a peal of lightning flashed, and suddenly Thalia found herself falling.

The sky melded into the ground as she flailed helplessly.

Cold.

Wind.

Rain.

Confusion.

Fear.

And just as suddenly, she hit the ground.

She landed on her arm, the force of the impact reverberating through her body. For a moment, she felt no pain. For a split second, there was only the pounding of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears.

A crash of thunder roared and with it came the pain.

The scream left her mouth before she could stop it and Thalia almost didn't recognize it as her own.

"Hey!" called a voice she barely heard. "Are you alright?"

She fought back the darkness that crept into the sides of her vision as she looked up into concerned blue eyes. "Who?"

"I'm Luke," he replied. Luke turned towards his companion, a girl around Thalia's age in a blonde ponytail. "Annabeth, go and call 911."

And then everything went black.

-O-

_Sometimes the fall kills you._

_-_O-_  
_

Thalia woke to throbbing pain and the antiseptic scent of the hospital. Groaning, opened her eyes to take in the damage. Everywhere she looked, she saw gauze or plaster.

"You shouldn't try to move," came the voice that she vaguely remembered.

Craning her head off to her left, Thalia saw the blue-eyed boy and his ponytailed friend. Throat dry and aching, she rasped out the first question that came to mind. "What happened?"

"You fell off a fire escape," Luke explained. "You're lucky I was passing by. The doctors said you've fractured a lot of bones and have some internal bleeding."

"They called you a medical miracle," the other girl supplied, turning a page in the book she was reading. "Around a ten percent chance of survival and you still made it out of surgery in one piece."

"Where am I?" Thalia asked, still trying to grasp the situation. She felt at her head with her good hand, because apparently the other one had been set into a cast, and pawed at the short spikes of hair her fingers met.

"You're in Caduceus, a hospital on the outskirts of the city," Luke replied, noticing her agitated motions. "Sorry about your hair, it got in the way of the stitches."

"How long have I been here?" she questioned.

"A little over thirty hours," Annabeth added.

Thalia grit her teeth in frustration. How the hell was she going to pay off hospital fees without contacting her mom? She'd never heard talk about insurance in their home. "Did you call my family?"

"Yeah," Luke said. "Funnily enough, my dad knows your dad."

All thoughts that had been running through Thalia's head suddenly stopped. Hadn't her mom told her that Dad was gone for good? After all the times Ms. Grace had broken down crying at the very mention of the man, Thalia had taken that to mean he'd died. "You contacted my dad?"

"Yeah," Luke repeated, confused at her reaction. "My dad owns the hospital and said he recognized you when you came in."

"Mr. Rhemsey told us you had eyes just like Mr. Deus'," Annabeth commented, closing her book. She wandered closer to Thalia's bed and smiled. "We haven't actually introduced ourselves yet. I'm Annabeth."

Thalia eyed the two strangers who'd saved her life and bit her lip. Should she really be so trusting when everything up to this moment had been so awful? Was this all really just falling into place? Thalia couldn't smile back at the grey-eyed girl in front of her, not when she was so broken.

But maybe, just maybe, these people who'd picked up her broken pieces would be able to make her whole.

"I'm Thalia," she said, planting a half hearted smirk on her face. This would be her new life. There was no way she would ever look back.

-O-

_Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly. _

_Neil Gaiman_

_

* * *

_Note: There you go guys, Thalia's backstory :D Please tell me if it was any good, I'm feeling kind of iffy about it. At least now we know why she's so afraid of heights ;)_  
_


	15. To live this nightmare

**PUSHING DAISIES**

There were few people whose opinions mattered to Annabeth. It worried her that Percy Jackson was becoming one of them.

Annabeth had never paid any attention to him in class. When they were saddled together as tutor and tutee, all she saw in Percy was another assignment to complete.

The blonde wondered, as she walked home from the library one breezy afternoon, when the connection had formed.

Maybe it was after she'd almost been stabbed in his apartment?

Maybe even before that?

...well, she supposed it didn't matter anymore.

Percy wasn't an idiot, despite what his marks might say. He'd figure out sooner or later how his mom had found him at Posei Corp. It bothered Annabeth that he hadn't complained once going through an entire act of Macbeth. It felt like whatever they had together was starting to strain and if this went on, eventually something would snap.

On top of it all, it seemed like he had some history with the Dare company's heiress.

To be honest, Annabeth couldn't explain how she'd felt staring at Percy's blurry, yet instantly recognizable form crouched over an equally fuzzy girl in a taxi. At first she was annoyed that Percy had neglected to tell her anything about this. Then she was confused, why should she care about Percy's life before CHB? Then she was worried, but at least she could justify that emotion by being his friend.

A sigh escaped her, fogging in the late autumn air. She watched it fade away and wished her problems would do the same. Every time she thought of Percy, she just confused herself more. The logical thing to do would be to stop thinking of him, but somehow Annabeth just couldn't do that.

A sharp sound broke through her thoughts and Annabeth froze.

Someone cried out in pain immediately after.

Annabeth broke into a run as her mind registered just whose voice that was.

She rounded the next corner at a sprint and followed the noise to its source. Someone was knelt over on the sidewalk, clumped dirt and ceramic shards surrounding him in a broken mess. The person turned at the sound of her hurried footfalls and stared up with dazed sea green eyes.

"Annabeth?" Percy slurred, a hand pressed against his head.

"Percy, you idiot, what happened?" she replied, walking over the remains of what looked like potted daisies towards her tutee. She pulled his hand away from where the pot must have hit and cursed at the sight of red. "You're bleeding, and on top of that, you might have a concussion."

"Did I just get owned by a flower pot?" Percy asked.

Ignoring his delayed realizations, Annabeth looked around the oddly empty streets for help. Her eyes settled on _Monsieur Pantoufle_, the chocolate shop Silena Beauregard's father owned. Perfect, only a few meters away. "Percy, I'm going to get help, okay?"

"Huh?" he replied eloquently.

"Just...don't hurt yourself," Annabeth instructed worriedly as she handed him a handkerchief to press against the wound. The blood looked bright against the old rose colour of the cloth. Annabeth rushed towards the shop, kicking away as many shards of broken pot as possible. Shoving open _Monsieur Pantoufle's_ glass paned wooden door, she scanned the vaguely familiar place for any sign of Silena.

"Can I help you?"

The voice, deep and sombre, startled Annabeth. She craned her head up and up and up to see its owner: a large, dark-skinned teen. In light of the rather urgent situation, she decided to forgo all niceties. "My friend is bleeding on your sidewalk."

Charlie Beckendorf didn't normally follow strange blonde girls with bloodied hands out the door, but he supposed today could be the exception.

~O~o~O~

"Ow!"

"Percy, don't squirm," Annabeth sighed. "They have to scrub the blood off."

Percy kneaded the sheets of his gurney, wincing as an intern swiped at his forehead with gauze that stank of antiseptic. "Do they have to do it so roughly?"

"We have to make sure the soil won't infect the cut," the intern replied. Hi gave his patient a few more rubs before snapping his gloves off and turning to the blonde who stood at his bedside. "I've stitched him up but there might be some bruising in his brain. We might have to take him up for some scans."

"Okay, well are there any forms to fill?" Annabeth asked. At the intern's nod she turned to her tutee and crossed her arms. "I'm going to go and fill out your paperwork. DON'T move and DON'T get into any trouble."

Having Annabeth shove him around wasn't new to Percy. Instead of wasting time and arguing as usual, he just nodded. Percy was tired. Maybe trying to go back to school regularly was a bad idea. It just gave the journalists and photographers a regular place to stalk him at. But Rachel had told him how to deal with this. He was supposed to do nothing. So that's what he was going to do. He trusted Rachel; she would deal with this. She'd been dealing with these things her whole life.

Percy pressed an ice pack to his throbbing head, fiddled with Annabeth's bloodied hanky and sighed. His eyes panned tiredly around the bustling emergency room as he watched doctors and nurses come and go in blue coloured scrubs. Blue, the colour reminded him of his mom. Oh God was she going to kill him.

"Hey!"

The teen startled and turned to the frail looking boy who'd called out. "Um...me?"

"Yeah, I've been trying to get you to help me for like an hour," the boy whined, rolling towards Percy.

Wait, rolling? Percy glanced at the boy's chrome wheelchair and couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He barely looked ten years old. "But I've only been sitting here for twenty minutes..."

"Details, details," the boy said with a dismissive wave. "There's something caught in my wheel and I can't get it out."

"Why don't you get one of the nurses to help?" Percy asked as he pushed himself off his gurney, Annabeth's instructions all but forgotten.

"I...don't like the nurses," the boy mumbled. His voice dropped to a whisper as he sighed. "The doctors too."

Percy's brow scrunched in confusion. Deciding not to pry into the life of a stranger, he went for a safer question. "So what're you doing wandering around, kid?"

"Trying to get away from my annoying sister and her punk friend, and the name's Nico, not kid," he huffed, crossing his arms and eyeing Percy. "What're you in for?"

"I uh...got assaulted," the teen replied. Well, it wasn't a lie, not really. Nico looked expectantly at him to continue and Percy sighed. "By a flower pot."

"That's got to be the lamest thing I've ever heard," Nico snickered, gliding back and forth as he tested his wheels. "Come on, let's go around and try to find someone even lamer."

Percy winced as he heard the word 'lame' fall candidly from the younger boy's mouth. "Sorry, Nico but I probably shouldn't wander around."

"Why not?" Nico half-whined. He glanced at the crumpled pink fabric Percy was still fiddling with and uttered a knowing, "OH."

"Oh what?"

"I get it."

"What?"

"Girl troubles," Nico nodded sagely.

"Wait, WHAT?" Percy sputtered. "You're like, TEN, what do you know?"

Nico shrugged, "I call it how I see it."

But before Percy could even have a chance at defending what little of his manly pride was left, a pointed cough sounded.

"Nico," called a stern voice. "You shouldn't be this far from your room. Now you'll be late for your rehabilitation session."

"Maybe I don't want to rehabilitate...," Nico mumbled to himself as the Nurse took control of his chair. He sighed deeply and waved goodbye to his new friend. "Bye, flower boy. Hope I don't see you around here anytime soon."

Percy wanted to make some witty retort but the sight of the boy being wheeled off made the words stick in his throat.

A familiar and comforting voice came up behind him. "Who was that?"

"No one," Percy said automatically, turning to face his tutor. He balked. Something was wrong. "Annabeth, did something happen?"

"N-no, why would you say that?" she huffed none too convincingly.

Annabeth _never_ stuttered. The last time it happened, she'd been at the receiving end of a knife. He took in her flushed face and rapid breaths, his brow creasing. "Annabeth..."

"I just...," she breathed. "Saw someone I knew."

"But—"

"Percy, drop it," she ordered, grey eyes hard. Annabeth didn't know what to think. She'd seen something that had set her head reeling. She couldn't deal with it right now, especially not with someone who confused her just as much. "Let's just get out of here."

~O~o~O~o~O~

A flash of movement caught Luke's eye as he crouched over Silena. It gave him a bad feeling, knowing that someone may have just seen him. But he supposed it didn't matter, he was here on Cronus' orders. He had to stop being so paranoid. Now, back to the task at hand...

"This sloppy work has to stop, Silena," Luke told her, fiddling with the scythe charm on her wrist. "If you don't get serious, you know what will happen…"

Luke looked at the girl who was in much the same situation he was in. Her father was caught in Kronos' snare, unable to break away and forever reliant on his protection. He knew that this was horrible, wrong and all things villainous, but he stared her down and barked the order anyway.

"Finish all this, or your shop gets closed and your father gets run out of town."

He knew it was wrong, but if it would wake his mom from her endless dream, he was willing to live this nightmare.

* * *

Note: I truly am sorry for the late update. Summer's looming and the next two chapters' plot is clear in my mind. We're drawing close to the first climax so don't give up on me now! :) I'm trying to stick Percabeth in but the way my story works it goes slow :D

Also, I haven't updated in 3 months but amazingly enough, people are still reviewing. You guys are AWESOME. Just wanted to know though, how is that that you found Notes (this story haha)?


	16. Gave her a bad feeling

Note: Sorry for all the new names that are swimming around the second half of this chapter. I couldn't think of anything to do about that.**  
**

* * *

**SNOWFLAKES AND ARGUMENTS**

Chiron had a lot to worry about.

Most guidance counselors dealt with college applications, wayward morals, and the occasional teen pregnancy. He got hoards of ADD children, the Stoll brothers, and as of late, death threats on his most high profile students.

The man sighed as he rolled down the pallid hallways of Caduceus Medical Centre. Nothing like this was in his job description. By the gods, if he didn't love these kids as much as he did, he'd have quit twenty years ago.

"HEY," someone cried out, the sound drawing nearer. "WATCH OUT!"

Chiron looked to the left just in time to be slammed in the side by what felt like a cannonball.

His chair toppled over as the old man was jostled off it, sprawling uncomfortably on the cold tiled floor.

"Nico!" a chastising voice called. "What've you done to this poor man?"

"I _told_ him to watch out!" the first person said. Chiron heard the faint, familiar squeak of a wheelchair approaching him. "Hey mister, are you okay?"

A helpful hand hovered in front of Chiron as he craned his head up to see who was offering it. Black brown eyes met his as he took the hand to pull himself up into a sit. The old man's legs stretched out uselessly in front of him and he sighed yet again. "You really shouldn't be racing around the halls like that, boy."

"Sorry," the brown-eyed boy mumbled.

Sharp click clacks sounded, announcing the arrival of a stern faced nurse. She gave Nico a scolding look before righting Chiron's chair and gently guiding him back into it. "I'm sorry, sir. Nico gets a bit restless after being cooped up for so long."

"It's no problem," Chiron reassured, setting his wool blanket back on his legs and smoothening out any creases. His arms moved back to grip the metal rail of his wheels when he felt something odd. "Strange, I don't seem to be able to move…"

The nurse gave him a worried glance before spotting a broken axle on his left wheel. "It looks like you'll need a new chair. I'm sorry again, sir, but you'll have to sit down somewhere while I get you one."

Chiron checked his watch. Still around twenty more minutes until his meeting, no big deal. "No problem, that thing was around a decade old anyway."

So, happenstance saw Chiron sitting quite awkwardly on a spare gurney with a rather grumpy boy stuck next to him. Nico, the counselor had heard the boy called, sat quietly in his wheelchair, absentmindedly picking at his hospital issued wristband.

"So," Nico started, seeming all of a sudden nervous. "Um…how long have you, uh, been in the chair?"

"For as long as I can remember," Chrion replied, turning to face the boy.

The conversation died for a while as Nico mustered enough courage to ask another question. "Do you ever, you know, wish you could stand?"

"Stand?" Chiron parroted, raising a grey tinged eyebrow.

"You know," Nico elaborated, making vague waving motions with his arms. "Up."

"Ahh," Chiron said, looking the boy over. As a guidance counselor, he'd been trained to notice certain things about the way people acted. The way Nico sat, how his shoulders hunched forward, and how he shrunk himself into the seat of his wheelchair so that could touch as little of it as possible…

"Don't you hate it?" Nico breathed, opening up for the first time to a stranger he'd just met. But a stranger who shared the same shackles he'd been bound with. "The _needing_? I can't open doors. I can't reach anything above three feet. I can't even go to the bathroom without help!"

The boy's quiet whisper became a barely contained shout as he went on and on about his disability. About the rehabilitation that wouldn't let him walk anyway. About the pitiful glances people sent him when they thought he wasn't looking.

"Nico," Chiron said soothingly as the boy wound himself down. "Look outside."

Feeling wretched and crushed, Nico obeyed and saw bright white specks drift past the window. "It's snowing."

"That's right," Chiron affirmed, careful not to sound too patronizing. "What's the most well known fact about snowflakes, Nico?"

"Each one of them is different," Nico replied. He sensed where the adult was going with this and frowned. "Just because they're different doesn't make them special. They were all made that way. They were all meant to look like that! I wasn't meant to be stuck like this…"

Chiron took the outburst in stride as he continued. "A little known fact, Nico, is that when all snowflakes are created, they're exactly the same."

The two of them stared out into the first snow of the year and Nico stayed silent.

"It's the chips and bumps that they get on the way, that make them different," Chiron told him. "It's the things that knock them down that make them special."

"Sir?" the nurse called, bustling towards them, a brand new wheelchair in tow. "Sir, sorry again, but here's your new chair."

"Thank you, ma'am," Chiron said as she helped him into it. The guidance counselor looked to Nico and smiled. "I hope you feel better, Nico."

And with that the old man rolled himself away.

Yes, Chiron had a lot to worry about. But he knew that in the end, it was all worth it.

~O~o~O~

Sally Jackson hadn't seen her son's father in almost ten years now. And so she wondered to herself, as she made her way towards a meeting with the very man, why she was doing this.

Of course, the meeting was about Percy's safety and how people were trying to hurt her boy and his friends but if she was honest with herself, that wasn't the only reason she was here.

She had to admit, sometimes Don Mar Posei _did_ cross her mind, bringing with him the 'should have's and 'what if's that always skittered across her thoughts.

But she steeled herself as she turned the knob to the room where they'd been told to meet. She wouldn't let herself be swayed by him again. Oh, most definitely not.

She stepped in, eyes scanning the room. People were gathered already, all dressed up in Armani suits and designer skirts Sally couldn't pronounce the names of.

But before she could say anything, a sunny voice decided to announce her arrival for her. "So you're the gal Posei's always sulking about!"

"Paulo!" cried the voice that stirred feelings in Sally that she thought had been lost long ago. He looked at her and suddenly her resolve crumbled.

Sally didn't notice the grinning blonde who'd first spoken or anyone else who was in the room. All she saw were the sea green eyes she'd fallen in love with some fifteen years ago. All she could think of were warm sandy beaches and soft loving kisses…

"Sally…," he started, taking a step towards the only woman he'd break a vow for.

"Enough of this," a terse voice commanded. The black-haired woman who'd spoken looked impatient, almost annoyed, at whatever was going on between the lovelorn pair. "Posei, we came here to talk about the children, not to rekindle old flames."

"Come on, Di. Give 'em a break," the blonde said, giving his sister an affectionate pat. He turned to Sally and flashed a winning smile. "Excuse my sister; she can be such a prude. You must be Percy's mom."

"You've met my son?" Sally croaked, tearing her gaze away from those beautiful sea-green eyes.

"Yep," the talkative blonde nodded. "He and my goddaughter have some history together. I'm Paulie by the way, owner of Chariot Cars and heartbreaker extraordinaire."

Sally didn't quite know what to say to that and was relieved when someone halted the conversation.

"Enough," another unfamiliar voice commanded, the single word dripping with authority. Everyone in the room turned to the middle aged man sitting on an ottoman at the head of the coffee table. "Let us all sit down. We're all very busy people and I think, for Mrs. Jackson's sake, some brief introductions are in order."

"Geez, Zed, no need to be such a sourpuss," Paulie huffed, taking a seat at the table as everyone else settled in.

Sally wondered for a moment where she should sit, before hearing a quiet 'pssst' in her direction. She followed the sound to an empty chair beside a familiar face.

"Mr. Chiron!" she exclaimed, recognizing her son's guidance councelor. "I didn't know you would be here."

"I always end up tangled in whatever the children do," Chiron chuckled, motioning for her to focus on the meeting.

"I am Zed Deus," the middle aged man said, starting the round of introductions. His electric blue eyes scanned the table as he went on. "President and owner of Deus Airways."

The black haired woman Paulie had called his sister and a prude followed suit. "Diana de Lune, headmistress of Huntington Girls' Academy."

"Paulo du Soleil, the original prince charming and—"

"Mar Posei," the seaman interrupted, sending Sally a furtive glance. "President and owner of Posei Sea Trading Corp."

"Mort Sedah," a sullen looking man continued. "President and owner of Riposi in Pace."

"Chiron, Head Guidance Counselor at CHB."

"Sally Jackson," Sally finished, feeling out of place as the only one without a job with a title.

"Well now that we've gotten that over with," Diana said. "Let's get to the pressing matter at hand."

"Right," Zed nodded, turning to address the group. "There have been some suspicions regarding foul play from the Cronus monopoly for some time now, but now we are worried that Cronus may be targeting the children. Both of Mort's children have been at Caduceus since their traffic accident, the reason why we are holding the meeting here seeing as he refuses to leave, and Posei's son was here a week ago for a concussion and laceration."

Sally breathed out slowly, digesting all this information. She'd known about Percy's recent visit to the hospital, Annabeth had dutifully filled her in with details, but she wasn't away there had been a traffic accident.

"So you believe that Cronus is trying to harm the half-bloods?" Chiron summarized.

Zed nodded and turned to Paulie. "Correct. We also think this might have something to do with the recent Dare scandal."

"Whoa there, big guy," Paulie said defensively. He pushed his sunglasses further into his perfectly styled golden locks, eyes serious for once. "Rachel's got nothing to do with this. If you that's what you called me in for then prepare be bombarded by some strongly worded haikus."

"You can't deny that she now has some relation to this," Diana reminded him. "Running away with that Jackson boy, what was she thinking?"

Sally was beginning to think that Diana de Lune would not be a very good friend of hers. "Don't go badmouthing my son."

Diana looked at Sally, contempt in her eyes. "You deny his involvement with the Dare scandal last year?"

"People make mistakes," Posei retorted, surprising Sally. Was he trying to defend their son? "He was just being loyal to a friend."

"That's right," Paulie agreed. "They were what, fourteen? It's not like we're meant to know everything about anything by then."

"We're not here for this," Mort Sedah muttered.

"Mr. Sedah is right," Chiron said. "What's done is done. We're here about the attempts on the children that are happening now."

"These things might be related," Diana pressed.

"But it's _not_ what we're here for!" Sedah exclaimed, standing up in exclamation. "We're here because kids are getting hurt, because Bianca is too scared to even _think _about getting into a car, and because Nico is in a damn _wheelchair _for the REST OF HIS LIFE!"

A few minutes of silence followed Mr. Sedah's outburst. He stood, breathing hard and lost in his tumultuous thoughts until a quiet voice broke the quiet.

"You're right," Sally said, voice soothing and firm all at once. She turned face these wealthy and powerful business people, who reminded her of a quarreling family, and asked. "What are we going to do about it?"

"We'll have to heighten security," Zed thought out loud. "Chiron, are there any big events we should know about?"

"The Masquerade Ball is coming up, Mr. Deus," Chiron informed him. "It's the school's farewell for the Huntington girls."

Sally watched as the business side of the meeting took over. Mentions of hired guards, security cameras, and entry control bounced back and forth. She sat there, listening to the business people do what they did best, and thought about the upcoming weeks.

A Masquerade Ball, huh?

Sally didn't know why, but the words gave her a bad feeling…

* * *

Note: Hm...wonder if anything big's happening next chapter.


	17. My boyfriend

**AND IT BEGINS**

"I look like an idiot," Percy proclaimed.

"No you don't," Sally told him from the driver's seat of their small, two-seater car. "I think you look very handsome."

"You're my mom, you _have_ to say that," the teen retorted, slouching into his seat and picking at the plain black tux he'd been forced to rent.

"Whatever you say, dear," Sally hummed, distracted. She wondered if it was really safe enough to let Percy go to the Ball, but Chiron had said that everything was as safe as it could be. If the children were told to stay home on the night of the Ball, they'd get suspicious, and Mr. Deus had been adamant about keeping the kids in the dark about all this.

_Ignorance is bliss,_ he'd said. _They don't need to worry themselves with our affairs._

"Mom?" Percy said, trying to snap her out of whatever she thought she'd lost herself in. He leaned over and tapped her on the shoulder, worry on his brow. "Mom? We're here."

"Oh," Sally breathed softly, glancing around. "So we are."

"Are you okay, Mom?" Percy asked as she parked their car on the curb. "You've been a bit weird the past few days…"

"Oh, nothing to worry about, Percy," Sally smiled, hating that she had to keep secrets. She always told her baby boy everything. "That reminds me, I have something for you. It's in the glove compartment."

Percy's hand fumbled with the compartment's clasp as it fell open, dropping a mask on his lap. He picked it up and held it up to the dim street corner light that flitted in through the car's windows. Pale yellow light danced across the blues, greens, and whites that formed waves around the eyes.

"Mom," Percy started, turning the small accessory over in his hands. "What's this for?"

"It's a masquerade ball, sweetie. Masks sort of come with the dress code," she laughed halfheartedly. "Your father wanted me to give it to you…"

Percy turned to his mom, eyes wide. "You met up with Dad?"

"Yes," she replied, taking the mask from him. The material felt soft and sturdy under her fingers as she set it on her son's face, resting on his nose and just above his cheeks. Sally brushed Percy's hair back and sighed, pulling him into a hug. "Have fun, dear."

Percy bit back the questions he wanted to ask. He knew his Mom would tell him what was wrong eventually. So he looked into her sad brown eyes and gave her an encouraging smile. "Thanks, Mom."

Percy waved goodbye as he stood on the sidewalk, trying to shove thoughts of his parents out of his head.

"Peeeeercy!" a familiar voice called. "Is that you?"

The teen smiled, he hadn't been hanging out with good old Grover lately. There'd just been too much drama in his life. "Hey G-man, what's u—WHOA!"

"What?" Grover asked, stopping a few feet away and cocking his head to the side.

"Your, your face!" Percy yelled, pointing frantically at it.

"What about it?"

"Horns! There are HORNS growing out of your FACE!"

"Oh, that's just my mask," Grover informed the poor, petrified teen. "Everyone in the maintenance staff wears a wooden goat mask."

"But…why does it look so _real_?"

"Mr. D's good with his hands," Grover shrugged, walking towards the school.

Percy snapped himself out of his rather unmanly freak out and followed his friend. "Mr. D carves masks?"

"One for every new employee," the older man told his friend. He scratched his ever-present stubble as they made their way towards the entrance. "Though I hear bad things happen when you lose yours, something about diet-coke and janitorial duty for six months."

"You two," someone called at the door, blocking the way and halting their conversation. The man was tall and looming, dressed in dark colours and a white dragon mask. "Identification?"

"We needed to bring an ID?" Percy blurted out. First he needed a mask, now this? Geez, was no one telling him anything these days?

"Don't worry," Grover said, lifting his mask. He turned to the man and craned his head up. "I'm with maintenance, he's a student here."

The dragon man gave a huff and checked a list he had crumpled in one hand. "Okay, come in."

"Thaaaanks," Grover bleated. Once the two were well out of earshot, he let out a breath. "Gods, those guards make me jumpy."

"Since when did CHB need guards?" Percy asked.

"Since Mr. D said so," the man replied, shrugging. "Trust me; we've tried to figure it out. Maybe he's just feeling extra paranoid. I mean, we normally have people at the door for The Ball, but Peleus Security's top notch. No one knows why they were hired this year."

"Is this Ball really that much of a big deal?" Percy sighed when they reached the gym's double doors.

"It's tradition!" Grover exclaimed, pushing the doors open.

Sound flooded out, washing over the two. Conversations overlapped, music played in the background, and a screaming girl seemed to be catapulting herself towards them.

"Grover!" she yelled gleefully, tackling the man down in what resembled a hug.

"Juniper!" he laughed as they untangled themselves from each other.

Percy stood awkwardly off to the side as the two go to their feet. "Um, hi?"

"Oh, sorry, Perce," Grover apologized, blushing. "This is Juniper, my girlfriend. She's one of the gardeners for the school. She's been away on leave lately though."

"Missed you every time I planted a seedling," Juniper elaborated, lacing her fingers through Grover's and smoothing wrinkles out of her green satin dress. She looked at Percy through a leafy mask that curled around her head like a crown and smiled. "Nice to meet you…?"

"Percy," the teen blurted out, realizing that Juniper was waiting for an answer. Attention elsewhere, his eyes scanned the room; someone was missing, where was—

"You seem distracted, Percy," Grover commented as he adjusted his goat mask.

"Oh, um, I'm just wondering where Annabeth is," Percy told his friend, eyes still on the crowd. "She's the one who made me come to this thing in the first place."

Juniper looked curiously at Percy. "Isn't this a mandatory event?"

Percy huffed, tearing his eyes away from their search for a moment. "That doesn't mean I _have_ to come, does it?"

"Hey Grover!" a blonde bookworm called from halfway across the gym. "Grover!"

"Oh there she is," Grover said, waving. "Over here!"

And there it was again. That tingling feeling that bubbled in Percy's chest every time he thought about his tutor. At first he had thought it was some kind of allergic reaction, maybe her shampoo didn't agree with him. But then he realized he liked the strawberry and spice smell of her shampoo. That made him think: he liked a lot of things about Annabeth. The more he thought, the worse the tingling got. So he stopped thinking about it altogether. It was just too overwhelming to think about her for too long.

He was snapped out of his musing by a playful whack.

"Percy, wipe that dumbstruck look off your face," Annabeth ordered, eyes bright behind a shimmering grey owl mask. "I hate it when you look like an idiot."

"I don't look like an idiot," Percy defended himself. "Someone told me I looked very handsome."

"Well who went and said that, half-blood?" a faintly familiar voice said. Its owner stepped up, golden snake mask covering the distinguishing scar, and both arms wrapped around a blushing Annabeth. "Your mom?"

The tingling intensified until it felt like something was drilling a hole right through him.

An embarrassed Annabeth smiled and broke out of the hug, hooking her arm around the golden snake's. "Percy, meet Luke Castellan, my boyfriend."


	18. She always had

**IT'S EASIER TO HATE THAN TO LOVE**

Annabeth stared into the hollow eyes of her faded owl mask, worn and weathered from all the Masquerade Balls she'd been to. Her fingers ghosted over its stormy grey surface, every chip, crack and dent, a different memory. She pressed her palm against the deep groves that had been notched into the mask's forehead, one for every year she'd been at CHB.

_One._

The year Luke found her, alone, frustrated, and miserable, tucked into one of New York's rainy alleyways. Her feet had ached horribly, Annabeth remembered, because she'd ran as far away from home as they could take her. She'd been so full of questions…

_Why was their family different from everyone else's? Who was that lady, wearing the sparkling ring Daddy had bought? Mother? She'd be my new mother?_

She'd been lost and Luke had found her.

_Two._

The year they were claimed and enrolled into CHB. All their lives, Luke and Annabeth had waited for a chance to meet the people who had abandoned them. Annabeth was lucky, brighter than average; her mother had asked to see her. Luke on the other hand…all he got was a letter admitting his mom into Caduceus. No greeting, no contact, no nothing.

_Three_

The year Thalia fell into their lives. Strong, vibrant and stubborn, Thalia held their trio together. Together, they would show those who'd abandoned them what exactly they were capable of. Together, they were invincible.

_Four_

The year Annabeth had kissed Luke for the first time. It had seemed so right back then. They'd known each other for so long. Everything they did, they did together. Of course, the most logical person for her to be with would be Luke. Who else was there?

But now…it just seemed so wrong.

She knew Luke.

She loved Luke.

He loved her back.

So why had she seen Luke crouched over Silena Beauregard, menace and threat tensed into every muscle?

Cornered and trapped, Silena had been trembling and absolutely terrified.

Annabeth knew Luke wouldn't do that...There must have been a reason.

She set her mask on the bridge of her nose and looked at herself in the dresser mirror. Her hair fell evenly on her shoulders, barely touching the shimmering blue-grey fabric of her dress. Annabeth fiddled with the blond strands, closing her eyes as she breathed in deep.

Tonight she would ask. Tonight the secrets would be gone.

_Ding dong_

_That must be Luke,_ Annabeth thought to herself. She breathed out, steeling herself, and stood.

Wading through organized piles of building sketches and architecture books, she grabbed her coat and made her way to the front door.

"Hey," Luke greeted as Annabeth opened the door. "You look great."

Annabeth peered curiously at her boyfriend. "Your mask, you changed it."

He touched the golden snake mask he wore and shrugged. "I thought a change would be nice."

"What was wrong with your old one?" Annabeth asked, remembering his old mask with its white wing motif.

"Nothing," he replied as he took her hand in his and led the way to the school. "I just thought…well, things need to change, Annabeth."

"Says who?" she retorted, knowing that she was just putting off asking the important questions. This wasn't time for small talk, damn it.

Luke didn't answer, and just flashed a sad smile. They walked the few blocks that separated Annbeth's home from the school in relative silence. The cold winter air blew against their backs, ruffling hair and dampening conversation. Soon enough, CHB loomed ahead of them and Annabeth felt compelled to kick herself.

_Why_ couldn't she just ask? It would be better to do it here, where there were less people. That's right; the sensible thing would be to ask here.

With that in mind, Annabeth turned to Luke and started, "Luke I have something to a—"

"ID's?" a gruff voice demanded.

Annabeth glared at the guy who'd interrupted her. Maybe the intensity of her stare would melt his idiotic dragon mask into his face. She shoved her school ID at the guard, fuming.

"Gimme a sec," Luke replied, digging his hand into his pocket and sending a sideward glance to his girlfriend.

The guard gave a curt nod at the two of them and let them in. Great, now they only had a short corridor walk to settle everything.

"Luke, there's something important I need to ask you," Annebeth let out in a rush, stopping halfway to the gym.

"Yeah?" Luke said with a false air of nonchalance. He turned to look into the determined grey eyes he knew so well. Trepidation fluttered in him. Annabeth was smart…had she figured anything out?

"A few weeks ago," she started. "I saw you at Caduceus."

"Why were you at Caduceus?" Luke asked, maybe he could divert all this.

"Percy got hit by a flower pot," Annbeth answered, scrunching her brow. She better get to the point before they got off track and she lost her nerve. "Don't change the subject. I saw you and Silena Beauregard together. It looked like you were threatening her."

Wisps of conversation drifted towards them from the other end of the hall. Luke started to panic, people couldn't see this. If he ever explained anything to her, it would be in private. "Look Annabeth, we should talk about this later, there are people about."

"I don't care if anyone hears," she told him, holding her voice to a harsh whisper. "As long as I hear the truth…"

Luke grit his teeth. "Annabeth, listen. This isn't something I can just tell you. There are people involved, people you don't want to be associated with."

"Then why are you involved with them?"

"Because I have no choice!"

This was bad. This was very, very, bad. Annabeth couldn't find out. Luke wouldn't let her find out. If he said anymore he knew she would start to investigate. No, he wouldn't let her get sucked into this.

He gripped her wrist and yanked her into another corridor, holding a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. The last time he'd done this, it was to Silena. Luke remembered feeling her tremble under his hold. But Annabeth wasn't Silena. She stood firm, eyes challenging him, asking him.

"Just stop, Annabeth," Luke pleaded, voice wavering. He lifted his hands and leaned his palms against either side of her. "I can't let you know…I just can't."

Annabeth looked at him, _really _looked at him. Beneath that mask, he was haggard. Whatever he was involved in was taking its toll. "You can't trust me?"

Luke laughed a mirthless laugh. "Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind."

They stayed like that, frozen in revelations and regret, until familiar voices reached them.

"…Peleus Security's top notch. No one knows why they were hired this year"

"Is this Ball really that much of a big deal?"

"It's tradition!"

Annabeth gasped, forgetting that she'd nagged Percy to come. Of all the people…Percy almost confused her as much as Luke did.

"Well," Luke said, quickly composing himself. "It looks like Grover's brought a friend. We should go in and join them."

Somberly, they walked into the gym, the upbeat music clashing horribly with their inner turmoil.

Annabeth spotted Grover's stubby horned goat mask first and called out. "Hey Grover! Grover!"

"Over here!" he called back, sending a cheery wave.

The blonde swallowed thickly, trying to push what had just happened aside. She could think about it later, somewhere more private. If things really were as bad as Luke made them out to be, she couldn't get anyone else involved with her suspicions.

The pair made their way towards their friends, weaving through the crowd. The first thing Annabeth noticed was her tutee's stupefied face.

"Percy, wipe that dumbstruck look off your face," Annabeth snapped, whacking him on the shoulder in mock annoyance. Her eyes shone with hidden confusion and theories and she hoped no one noticed how out of it she was. "I hate it when you look like an idiot."

"I don't look like an idiot," Percy retorted in that endearingly whiny way he did. "Someone told me I looked very handsome."

"Well who went and said that, half-blood?" Luke laughed, reverting back to his cool and sassy self. He wrapped his arms around her and joked, "Your mom?"

Annabeth felt her face heat up with frustration, knowing that the smiles and laughs were fake. She wanted to know what was wrong. She wanted to know, so badly. Inwardly sighing, she slipped into an insincere smile of her own and casually broke Luke's hold on her. "Percy, meet Luke Castellan, my boyfriend."

"Nice to, um, meet you," Percy mumbled, voice cracking slightly. "Wait, Castellan?"

"Hey kid," Luke said, lifting his mask to peer at the shorter boy. "I thought I told you to try and forget my name?"

"You two know each other?" Grover asked.

"He saved me from some thugs," Percy told his friend.

Annabeth's mind worked furiously at this new information. Thugs? "You got jumped by thugs, Percy?"

"Yeah, some kid named Ethan Nakamura," Percy told her. "Castellan stopped him though, talked him out of it."

Ethan Nakamura? Annabeth knew that name. He was an infamous delinquent. Rumor had it he was involved with the big gangs that occupied the slums. What was Luke up to that he had control and power over someone so high profile?

"Excuse us guys," Annabeth said. "We've got something private to do."

She grabbed Luke's arm and dragged him out into the corridor, determined to find out what the hell was happening.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Percy said as he watched the two slip away.

"Maaaaybe you just ate a bad enchilada or something," Grover suggested.

"Percy, don't follow them!" Juniper scolded when she noticed the teen inching away. "When a couple says they want to be alone, you leave them alone!"

"I don't care," Percy huffed, breaking off from Grover and Juniper. He cut through the crowd, towards Annabeth's general direction. She'd been acting strangely and for reasons Percy couldn't understand, he felt an overwhelming urge to protect her. From what, he didn't quite know yet. But he knew one thing, if something was wrong, he would be there to help, the same way she was always there for him.

~O~o~O~

"You've figured it out, haven't you?" Luke said darkly.

Annabeth checked the halls to see if anyone was around before ducking in to join Luke in the empty classroom she had found. "Figured what out?"

"Come on, Annabeth. You're smart," Luke drawled in exasperation. All this effort to keep things from her and she just shoves it down the drain. "Tell me what your wonderful mind has worked out."

"You're involved with gangs," she proclaimed, hoping for once she was wrong. "That Cronus school has got you doing illegal things."

"Great job, Annabeth," he clapped. "Now you're part of it."

Annabeth watched him warily. She knew he was being pushed over the edge. "So what now?"

"Now, you have to go," Luke told her. "Get as far away from here as possible. You can't be here when things start happening. It's already been set in motion, Annabeth. There isn't much time."

"Luke…these things you're doing," she started. "Are they hurting people?"

He didn't reply. That was enough of an answer for her.

"You can't be doing this," she said, half to herself, half to him. "This isn't you Luke. Just come back to CHB, we'll talk to Mr. D and see what they can do."

"Why come back here?" Luke retorted as he started pacing the room. "Why come back to the people who never wanted us, Annabeth? When was I claimed? While I was bleeding next to my hysterical mother! Years of teasing and bullying because she wouldn't keep quiet about 'winged shoes' and 'prophecies' and did they do anything?"

"They sent your mom to Caduceus, Luke," Annabeth reminded him. "It's one of the best hospitals in the country."

"The headmaster of Cronus offers a sweeter deal," Luke told her, careful to not directly say anything. "So I can't come back, Annabeth. It's…better where I am now."

"So you're fine with hurting people?"

"As long as it helps me, then yeah," he declared coldly.

"Annabeth?" someone cried from outside. Pounding sounded against the classroom's locked door. Percy, Annabeth recognized through her haze of shock and confusion. "I hear shouting!"

"I guess we stand on different sides of the fence for this one," Luke sighed. It was for the best. This way, she wouldn't follow him into the hole he'd buried himself into.

Annabeth stared up at him, tears stinging at her eyes. "I can't persuade you to stay?"

"There's nothing worth staying for," he smiled sadly, taking her into his arms for what he supposed to be the last hug they'd share. "Goodbye Annabeth."

"Goodbye, Luke," she whispered back.

He breathed in her strawberry and spice scent one last time before letting go. Walking over to the door, he let himself look back for just a moment before letting a flustered Percy into the room.

Percy shoved Luke aside and scrambled over to Annabeth, words of concern and comfort gushing out of him.

Luke sighed and stepped into the hallway. There was no reason for him to hang around here anymore. Now that Annabeth probably hated him, all that was left was—

"Luke!"

Speak of the devil. "Hey Thalia."

"Luke Castellan, what the HELL do you think you're doing?" she all but shouted, sliding the silver doe mask of a Hunter off her face.

"It's better this way, Thalia," he reasoned, not looking her in the eye. "With what I'm doing, it's easier for her to hate me."

"It doesn't work that way, Luke," Thalia growled, full of indignant fury. "Love doesn't stop when you're betrayed. It'll still be there; she'll still be hurting."

He looked at her and stared at those electric blue eyes. "You know from experience?"

"Yes, you bastard, I do," she hissed. Familiar, resentful thoughts about Luke and Annabeth leaving her behind came rushing back. She pushed them aside. This wasn't about her.

"I guess you hate me now too," Luke observed.

And with that, he left.

Thalia didn't try to stop him. Annabeth may not have seen the sadness behind that mask, but Thalia saw it.

She always had.

* * *

Note: Won't be updating for a while, but I figure this is as good a place as any to leave you guys :)


	19. The way to dusty death

**SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES**

Annabeth stared at the books splayed across the worn wooden table she occupied every Saturday afternoon. Her eyes stared at the same text she'd been reading for the past hour, refusing to take anything in.

Breathing a heavy sigh, she leaned closer to her book and tried to focus. The library's comforting silence and familiar shelves were supposed to calm her down, but she was just as cluttered and emotional as ever.

Damnit, this wasn't who she was.

She was Annabeth Chase, smart, independent, resourceful. She was _not_ a hormonal sap whose mind turned into goo just because her boyfriend dumped her.

Realistically speaking, she'd known that this would happen eventually…

The thought did nothing to ease the situation.

"Hey," a familiar voice called out.

"Hi," Annabeth greeted, looking up from her pointless reading to see Thalia noisily drag a chair over from another table. The blonde hoped she didn't look too disheveled. The last thing she needed was a worried Thalia shirking her Hunter duties to give a pep talk.

"I'm going to cut to the chase," Thalia informed her as she sat down. "Annabeth, you look like crap."

Annabeth almost laughed. At least someone was staying in character. "Blunt as always, aren't we?"

"I figured you'd welcome an honest opinion," the Hunter shrugged. "Grover tells me you've been moping ever since the Ball. As much as it pains me to say, we need to have a heart to heart."

"I never thought I'd hear such a girly, colloquial term come from your mouth," Annabeth said, forcing a smile onto her face. "But really, I'm fine."

Annabeth hated to lie. Now that Luke was out of her life, Thalia was the closest friend she had. But she couldn't let the Hunter find out how devastated she was. How it felt like something dear and important had been taken from her. How, for some reason, her insides just felt empty.

Thalia scowled and leaned forward in her seat. "Fine my ass."

The blonde frowned. Why did her friend have to make this so hard? "You don't believe me?"

"Annabeth, the two of you were going out for almost a year," Thalia pointed out. "Not only that, you were practically family before all this. Don't sit there, reading an upside down physics text book, and tell me that, despite the luggage-grade eye bags you're sporting, you're fine."

"What do you _want _me to tell you?" Annabeth asked, emotional dams cracking. "That I'm dying on the inside and can't live life without him?"

"Well not in those words exactly," Thalia answered, staring at her best friend. "They're a bit too cliché to be coming from you. But yeah, something along those lines would fit the bill."

The two sat there for a few good minutes, staring each other down, until Annabeth finally cracked.

"Fine, I'm not fine," the blonde confessed, averting her eyes from Thalia's piercing blue gaze. "I feel like crap and I wish he hadn't left."

Thalia cracked a sad smile. "Now we're getting somewhere."

"I wish I knew why he's doing all this, why nothing important matters to him anymore," she began, a shudder in her voice. "He's not just dumping me, Thalia. The way he spoke, it was like he was leaving all of us behind. What's so important that he's willing to hurt others to get it?"

"We'll get through this," the Hunter assured her friend. "It's not the first time someone's transferred out of CHB."

"You don't understand," Annabeth whispered, tense her tone dropping. "He's _physically_ hurting people…."

Thalia blinked slowly as that statement sunk in. "Come again?"

"He's involved with gangs now," the blonde stated, glad to be away from the post-break up talk. "I think it started when he got into that transfer program at Cronus."

"And he told you all this?"

Annabeth bit her lip, knowing that her friend didn't like being out of the loop. "I figured it out. He didn't want me to get involved with it."

"Obviously, that's an invitation to get involved," Thalia reasoned.

Annabeth frowned. "That's not the smartest thing to be doing."

"You're the smart one, Annabeth," the Hunter pointed out. "I'm the headstrong and brave one, remember?"

"Right," Annabeth agreed. She felt better talking about this. No hormones, no feelings, just facts. Now they were strategizing, formulating a plan. This, Annabeth reminded herself, was who she was.

"Don't think I'm forgetting about our heart to heart," Thalia reminded. "I came all the way here from Huntington. The Headmistress will throw a fit when she finds out. So before we go planning anything big, we have to straighten you out."

Annabeth's spirits sank. Not this again. "I don't want to talk about it."

"I know you don't," Thalia said. "But you'll have to eventually."

The blonde bit her lip. She _really_ didn't deal well with emotions. Sighing once again, she dug around her jeans' pocket for her lucky charm: half of a worn down sand dollar.

"Do you know what this is, Thalia?" she asked, setting it down on the table. "It's the first thing Luke ever gave me. When I first saw him, I'd run away from home thinking no one cared. He walked into the half-flooded back alley I'd hidden in, emptied his pockets, gave me this and told me that everyone's worth something."

Thalia knew this story. She'd heard it before, but she'd never seen her friend so wracked by it.

"Now that I look back, I don't know who he was trying to convince, me or himself," Annabeth went on, grateful that her friend wasn't interrupting. If she stopped now, she didn't know if she could start again. "He's got the other half of this. I'm looking at it as an unspoken promise. I'm going to stop whatever he's up to and remind him what he's worth again. Whether or not we're still boyfriend and girlfriend, Luke's family, he always has been. I'm not going to talk about losing him while there's still something I can do to bring him back."

Thalia looked at her friend and recognized the same steely determination that had talked her through months of physical therapy and rehabilitation. Annabeth was back from whatever emotionally tumultuous place she'd come from and there was no stopping her now.

"I guess that's it for our heart to heart," Thalia sighed, leaning back into her chair. "So, what's our first move?"

"Luke said that things were happening," Annabeth said, the gears in her head starting to turn. "That something had been set into motion. So the first thing we do is brace ourselves for whatever's going to happen. I can feel it, Thalia. It's going to be something big."

"So we're waiting?" the Hunter groaned. "That's boring as hell!"

"I'm the smart one, remember?"

"Fine, fine," Thalia muttered good-naturedly, happy that some of her friend's sass was returning. Something buzzed in her pocket and the Hunter flipped out a sleek black cell phone. A frown graced her face as she read the text. "While we're waiting, you might want to text that idiot tutee of yours."

"Percy? Why?"

"Grover must have told him that I was coming to talk to you, he's sent me nine texts in the last hour."

Annabeth felt like slapping herself in the forehead. Right when she'd cleared up her feelings about Luke, Percy just _had_ to pop back into the picture. Would there be no end to the confusion?

Sometimes Annabeth wished that high school would be as easy to understand as a good Shakespeare quote.

~O~o~O~

Luke Castellan walked purposely through the halls of Caduceus, intent on seeing his mom one last time before he finally completed the task Headmaster Titanus set out for him. After a few days, she'd be getting the surgery that would fix everything. Then they could leave, just the two of them. Maybe go for a vacation. She'd always wanted to go to Greece.

He turned the corner to the familiar room she'd been in for the past three or so years and heard an unfamiliar voice.

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," the feminine voice quoted.

Luke peered into the room to see a candy striper volunteer reading out a copy of Macbeth. It looked like she was trying to memorize lines.

"Creeps in this petty pace from day to day," she continued.

Luke noticed his mother's head bobbing with the rhythm of the girl's voice, eyes closed and a content smile on her lips.

"To the last syllable of recorded time," the girl went on, her tone rising and dropping with the cadence of the line.

Luke turned around and headed back. One day wouldn't make a difference, and he'd hate to wreck one of the few peaceful moments his mom had. Soon she'd be healthy and lucid, so he supposed it didn't matter.

The candy striper's voice blended into the background as Luke made his way to the exit. She lowered her voice as she continued with the quote, tone matching the ominous lines:

"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools, the way to dusty death."

* * *

Note: My laptop's back with me so therefore, I'm back to this story :D Ooooh is this (bad) foreshadowing I see?


	20. Kneedeep in it

**THE BEGINNING OF THE END**

Percy would be the first to admit that he had the emotional experience of a teaspoon.

But whenever he dealt with Annabeth, things were…instinctual. There was no thought before any action, no worry about what to do or how to act.

The moment she left the gym with that snake faced boyfriend of hers, Percy knew. He saw it in the stiffness of her movements and the urgency of her voice. Something was going to go horribly, horribly wrong. And even if he could do nothing to stop it, he was going to make sure that he was at least there when it happened.

Percy'd zeroed in on her as soon as he stepped into that classroom. Suddenly, nothing else mattered except the dull grey her stormy eyes had faded to. He'd rushed to in and held her in an awkward hug as she shuddered in uncharacteristic sobs.

And he'd felt horrible about it.

Because even with Annabeth breaking down in his arms, he couldn't help the pinprick of relief that spread through him.

He didn't understand it. She'd just broken up with her boyfriend, what did he have to feel happy about?

"Hey Percy, this is the third time I've lapped you," a familiar voice commented.

"Oh," Percy said, snapping out of his thoughts. Nowadays, he'd been doing a lot of thinking in PE. "Hey, Connor."

"You're doing worse than usual," the track kid informed him as he slowed down his jog. "What's buggin' you?"

"Nothing, really," Percy answered. He didn't want to burden Connor with his problems. Besides, he wasn't quite ready to go telling people he'd been there to see the now infamous Lukabeth breakup. "Wait, where's Travis?"

"Oh that love sick sap?" Connor joked. "Probably playing another prank on Katie."

Percy raised a questioning eyebrow. The Stolls were near inseparable. "Without you?"

Connor shrugged. "An angry Katie is a dangerous Katie."

The two ran in silence after that, Percy starting to lose himself in his thoughts again as their sneakers pounded rhythmically against the track.

"Aww, now you've got the face on," Connor groaned, tossing his head back in a dramatic sigh.

Percy shook his head, clearing away the confusing teenage thoughts and drama. "What?"

"It's a bit more constipated looking than Travis'," Connor started. "But trust me dude, that's the love face."

"The _what_ face?"

"The looooove face," Connor cooed, smirking.

Percy scrunched his eyebrows together and whacked his friend on the arm. "Stop that! I'm just…worried about Annabeth."

"I'm not sure 'worried'," Connor said, forming air quotes around the word. "Would be the word to use."

"Right," Percy grumbled, sharp winter air cutting across his face as he tried to speed up. "And you're an expert in things like this."

Connor smirked and easily kept pace. "I see my reputation precedes me."

o~O~o~O~o

"You have ten minutes, Castellan," Ethan barked, voice crackling over the phone. "Don't waste them."

"I know, don't worry," Luke assured him, ending the call. "I'll be in and out in no time."

The blonde strode purposely through the dreary winter afternoon towards CHB's looming structure. He hadn't planned on ever coming back, but once he'd heard about the plan…well, he couldn't just leave Annabeth there while Mr. Titanus had so much planned for the school today. At least Thalia was safe in Huntington; that was a load off his mind. Now, Luke's only priority was getting Annabeth out of there. She already hated him anyway, so what harm would probable kidnapping do?

Luke stuck his hands into the old CHB hoodie he'd chosen to wear and walked into the deserted halls like he owned the place. He made a B-line to the library, head low and shoulders hunched. It was three pm sharp on a Thursday, her study block, the only time of day he was sure she'd be alone.

And like clockwork, there she was, signature ponytail and all, sitting at a worn out desk by a window.

He crept up behind her, footfalls muffled by the library's threadbare carpet, and saw her tense.

_Damnit, _Luke thought to himself as he moved to sit across her. _She always did know whenever I was around._

"What do you want?" she asked, voice low and calm.

Luke reached over and grabbed a book off the stack she had beside her, watching her posture turn rigid. He pretended to busy himself with it before replying. "I need you to come with me."

"First you dump me, now I have to come with you?"

The even tone of her voice unnerved him. That wasn't what average, lovelorn teenagers sounded like. Then again, Annabeth had never been very average. "The school won't be the safest place to be in a few hours."

"What are you talking about?"

By now, Luke was sure she had something up her sleeve. "It's none of your business, and if you go with me, then it's nothing you need to know."

"Luke, you're making me ditch school and follow you to an undisclosed location," she said as she scribbled down annotations on the book she'd been poring over. "I'm making it my business."

"I didn't tell you about this to keep you safe," Luke started, a drop of frustration seeping in. Why was she digging so deep into this? He didn't have time to play twenty questions with her. "If you stay around here, you won't be."

"So all you care about is saving me? What about everyone else in the school? This'll be dangerous for them too, won't it?"

"Annabeth," he started, trying to keep himself level. He'd begged Headmaster Titanus for these ten minutes and now they were half gone. "You're the only one I could afford to get out. Just…trust me, okay?"

She was silent for a few minutes, her pen scratching noisily as she wrote. "And we can't tell Chiron or Mr. D?"

"If anything drastic happens, it'll just force them to act faster," Luke informed her. "Believe me, plan B's worse than plan A."

He watched her, seeing the gears turn in her head as she weighed the options.

"Fine," she said finally, flipping her book shut and packing up. "I'll go, just let me give this book to the librarian."

"You can't do that. I don't know what you've been scribbling in there."

"Notes," Annabeth answered, holding out the book for him to check. "If people see me just talking through my study block, they'll get suspicious."

Luke flipped through its pages, highlighted words and multicolored post-its flying by. "Shakespeare?"

She nodded, holding her hand out and daring him to keep her book from her.

Two minutes left, Luke sighed and gave in. It wasn't like there was anything incriminating in there.

The two walked towards the circulation desk, Luke hanging back as Annabeth dropped it off without a word to the librarian.

The walk out of the school was quick and quiet, which was just as well. They had less than a minute left.

Annabeth glanced up the street as they stepped onto the sidewalk. "How are we getting to wherever we're going?"

Luke glanced at his watch, worrying. This was all going a bit too well. "Don't worry, we're getting picked up."

And exactly ten minutes past three, a sleek black car pulled over in front of them. Luke stepped forward and held the door open, watching Annabeth hesitate.

"Well," he prompted, his voice full of confidence he didn't feel. "Are you backing out?"

She frowned and got in, waiting until Luke joined her before asking, "Luke, what have you gotten yourself into?"

Luke didn't answer. Instead he looked out the window, watching the lights flicker off in each house they passed. A mass blackout, just as Headmaster Titanus had planned. Nervous guilt fluttered in Luke, because for better or for worse, the plan was starting and Luke was knee-deep in it.


	21. This would show them all

Note: Had trouble with the first part of this chapter :/ sorry for the wait.

* * *

**RUMORS AND REVENGE**_  
_

_MESSAGE CANNOT BE SENT_

Percy stared at his phone screen, irritated. Sighing, he tried again. Third time's the charm, right?

_To: Annabeth_

_Picked your notes up. Don't really get them._

_Need help. Where are you?_

"Percy," an exasperated voice called. "Are you going to help with this or not?"

"Huh?" Percy mumbled, pressing send. He glanced up to see an annoyed Malcolm glaring at him. "Oh sorry."

"Don't bother trying to help now," the bookworm told his lab partner as he cleaned a beaker. He scanned to room to see everyone else was done and chatting already. "I'd hate to force you to tear your eyes away from your phone for two seconds."

Sighing, Percy stuffed his phone into his pants pocket and moved over to the sink to help. "Sorry, Malcolm. I just can't get in touch with Annabeth and I really don't get these notes she left me."

Malcolm swallowed nervously before saying anything. Percy and Annabeth were _the_ hot topic lately. Ever since the Masquerade ball, rumors had been burning through the school like wildfire. Malcolm didn't believe half of them, of course. Because really, Percy busting down a door barricaded by twenty tables to knock Luke into unconsciousness and save damsel-in-distress Annabeth was a bit too much. Nevertheless, he didn't want to get caught in between the crossfire.

So, treading lightly, he shrugged, "maybe her phone's off?"

"That's not it," Percy insisted as he dried off glassware. "I'm just not getting any signal."

"Can't it wait?" Malcolm asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"I guess…," Percy said. "I mean I _did_ just swipe them from the library on my way back from the bathroom."

Malcolm put their beakers and test tubes away as Percy finished up. "Well, they say patience is a virtue."

Percy shrugged and frowned. "I dunno, it just gives me a bad feel—"

The words caught in his mouth as the lights flickered off with an ominous crackle.

The rest of the room fell into a hushed silence, waiting for anything else to happen.

"All right, listen up kiddos," a sarcastic voice drawled over the PA system. "Looks like our power's been cut. Stay put and don't run around like a bunch of headless chickens."

"A _really_ bad feeling, Malcolm," Percy said, shifting from foot to foot restlessly.

"Don't worry, the school's got a generator," the bookworm told his friend. The knowledge did nothing to calm the teen and Malcolm sighed. "Look, why don't I help you with your English homework instead?"

Percy frowned, that wasn't exactly what he was worried about. He didn't really give a damn about what he got in English. Annabeth did though, so she wouldn't just ditch a tutoring session like that. But it's not like he could say he was worried about her, so Percy gave in and dug an annotated book out of his bag.

He deposited it on their wiped-down lab table with a thud and frowned. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing with that."

The pages rustled as Malcolm breezed through them, eyes scanning over soliloquies and prose. He stopped abruptly, as if something odd had caught his eye. "Percy, does Annabeth normally annotate your books?"

"No," Percy replied, wondering why, all of a sudden, Malcolm seemed so serious. "Normally we do it separately then compare so she can tell me how wrong I am."

"I see," Malcolm mumbled to himself.

Percy watched his friend flip through the pages more frantically than before. "Why? Did she do something?"

"Not really," he said, staring intently at the page he'd stopped at. "It's more of how she annotated."

"You mean those weird scribbles all over the randomly highlighted stuff?"

"The scribbles are called shorthand," Malcolm informed him, holding the open book out for Percy to see. "And the highlighting is just how we bookworms make notes. No one besides us can really make any sense of it, so it's weird that she'd leave this with you."

"So what's it mean anyway?"

"Well most of it is just normal annotations," the bookworm started, brow scrunching as he flipped to a specific page. "But here's where it gets weird."

Malcolm pointed at a clump of text where only certain words had been highlighted.

_If not, why then this parting was well made._

"And below it, in shorthand, it says: _our Cassius has done the opposite,"_ Malcolm explained. He turned to another page and bit his lip. "Here's another one."

_Such men are dangerous._

"And the shorthand here says: _our Cassius acts his part,_" he said excitedly, as if he'd just broken a secret code.

Quite frankly, Percy just thought he was spouting jibber jabber. "Malcolm, you're forgetting that I was failing English before Annabeth. You'll have to run that by me again."

Malcolm sighed and started to explain. "Every time a shorthand message starts with 'our Cassius', it refers to an action. The rest of the message tells you exactly what 'our Cassius' did by referring to the highlighted text."

"Okay…," Percy nodded, pretending he completely understood. "So what's it actually saying?"

"Well the first one means that 'our Cassius' must have left on bad terms," Malcolm told him. "The second is more straightforward. 'Our Cassius' must be a dangerous guy."

"So Annabeth's trying to tell me to watch out for someone named Cassius?"

"It can't be as literal as that…Cassius in the play was someone who betrayed Caesar. She must mean someone who's turned on her."

Percy's heart started to race, a sickening feeling coiling in his gut. "Does it say anything else?"

Malcolm flicked through the pages one last time. "There's a third one near the end of act 3 scene 2, but the shorthand's different."

_Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more._

Normally, it took Percy a while to understand anything remotely Shakespearian. But something in his head had clicked and suddenly, he understood. Just to make sure, he asked, "what's the shorthand say?"

"It doesn't refer to anything 'our Cassius' does," Malcolm said. "Just that '_our Cassius is still who he was'._ It doesn't even make any reference to the text."

"Okay, thanks Malcolm," Percy said as he slung his backpack on.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"I didn't really understand whatever you just said," Percy confessed. "But I do know that something's wrong with Annabeth, because a secret message is just plain weird even for her. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out who her Cassius is."

"So you're ditching school to go find her?"

"Well who else is going to?"

And with that, Percy turned on his heel and strode out the door.

Malcolm watched him leave, noting the urgency in his step. Maybe some of the rumors were true after all.

~O~o~O~o~O~

Ethan Nakamura trudged through the hallways of his beloved Lord Cronus Institution with an air of irritation. He used to be the Headmaster's go-to guy, the top of the social pyramid around here. But thanks to that damned new kid, things had been going downhill.

He used to be the one calling the shots! Now he's stuck escorting Castellan's bastard girlfriend around the school.

She didn't say a word and followed meekly as they navigated deeper into the school. Ethan scoffed at her attitude. Soft, just like all half-bloods were. They weren't prepared to do what he had done to get where he was. They had it easy. Mommy or daddy would find them, take them, and enroll them into that damned school. The half-bloods were set for life, just because they'd been lucky to be born to parents that remotely cared.

Ethan had been born a failure. Growing up in an orphanage, he knew rejection. He knew it well. No one wanted a boy who was blind in one eye and always brooding with the other. No one except Headmaster Titanus.

Ethan had never been favored growing up. Despite the adoption, the Headmaster had treated him as he did everybody else, with an iron fist. Ethan had clawed his way up from the bottom on his own strength and had made this school his home.

Until Luke Castellan came along.

The Headmaster treated him like a godsend, just because Castellan has a half-blood and they needed a spy.

Ethan kept to his musings even as they reached their destination: an old storage room in the lower levels. He shoved the quiet blond half-blood in, sending a jeering smile as she looks back with narrowed grey eyes.

The automatic door locked itself with a quiet _click._

Free of his menial task, Ethan found himself left to his own devices. Which was just as well, he had something to do, something that would get him back on top of the food chain.

Lifting his baggy school hoodie, he felt at his waist to make sure it was still there.

A true smile graced his lips as the gun's smooth handle, his fingers grazing over the safety.

This would show them. This would show them all.


	22. What the HELL are you doing here

**FANCY SEEING YOU HERE**

Silena had been promised one thing in exchange for her services: safety.

If she patched Headmaster Titanus into CHB's system, her father's debts would be paid.

If she gave a report on the school happenings every week, Charlie would get a steady job somewhere.

If she betrayed all her friends, no one she loved would get hurt.

But they'd lied. Of course they'd lied. She'd been stupid to think otherwise.

CHB was being attacked today. There was no other word to describe it.

Every single person that had ever been pissed off by the high and mighty Olympic family was standing by the school's doors, waiting for the Headmaster's go signal. And did the wealthy business men and women care? No, of course not. That had been the first thing the Headmaster had ever told her. They didn't care. They never would.

So there she sat, guilt-ridden and miserable, in the tiny apartment above her chocolate shop, wondering and regretting all the things she'd done.

_At least, _she thought to herself as she shifted stiffly in her couch. _Charlie, Dad, and I are safe. I was promised that much._

Silena clung to this shred of optimism for almost a full second before something came along to tear her back down to reality.

"Silena!" a ragged voice called out, loud and desperate against the shop door's quiet creak. "Silena, come down!"

Her feet were carrying her down before she could even register what was happening. The urgent tone of the voice sent a chill down her spine. To hear voices that had so tenderly said '_I love you'_ only an hour ago sound so crushed…

She'd been stupid. So, so, so stupid.

~O~o~O~

Right, left, right again, down a staircase, left, straight, right…or was it left?

Annabeth ran through the mental map she'd drawn of the school, making sure each and every turn was accurate. She was glad her escort had been so deathly silent as they walked. The silence had been a welcome comfort, however awkward it was.

It had been around twenty minutes since she'd left CHB. Hopefully, that would be enough time for someone to figure out what was happening. Though, with whatever was happening at the school, Annabeth wasn't expecting the cavalry to be coming anytime soon.

But she was absolutely certain that the key to all of this conflict was somewhere in Lord Cronus Institution. She'd bet her life on it.

Everything that was happening had one thing in common, Headmaster Oras Titanus.

No one would believe her if she strutted along spewing conspiracies about a rival school. So there was only one thing to do: go in herself. Luke had practically sent her in anyway. It was perfect.

There was one hiccup to her hastily formulated plan, though. Currently, she was locked in a spare classroom with absolutely no way out.

And like an answer to her unsaid prayer, a metallic click cut through her thoughts.

Annabeth froze; even though she knew whoever had just picked the door's lock couldn't see her. Getting a hold of herrself, she grabbed a chair and held it aloft with a grunt. However pathetic it was, the chair was a weapon. The door inched open, slowly revealing the intruder.

"Eek!"

"Silena!" Annabeth hissed, mid-swing. The chair grazed the girl as it came crashing to the ground.

"Oh my God, Annabeth," Silena muttered, wide-eyed. "You could have bashed my head in."

"Well I didn't really expect to see a friendly face here!" the bookworm retorted. She looked her friend over. Windswept, Silena's breath came in short pants. "Did you run all the way here or something?"

"Yeah," she replied, grasping Annabeth's wrist. "Now hurry up and let's get going."

"Wait, what?" Annabeth was confused. She didn't like being confused. "Why are you here? Did you come from the school?"

Silena didn't stop to answer as she dragged Annabeth through the halls.

"Silena! We're not even going the right way!"

"Yes we are," the brunette said, pausing at a fire escape. Something glinted from her wrist as the door swung open. "It's a shortcut, come on."

"I can't leave now," Annabeth protested. Their footsteps echoed in the narrow space as she explained herself. "I haven't learned anything about what's going on."

Silena stopped so suddenly that Annabeth almost crashed into her. She looked down to blonde friend, face harsh under the stark fluorescent lights of the fire escape. "I'll tell you what's going on. The school's being attacked by every enemy our parents have ever made; the Headmaster is hiding out somewhere that's definitely not the school, and the only way we can stop what's happening is to convince Luke to abort the plan."

Dumbstruck, Annabeth swallowed, trying to digest that information. The gears started turning as she asked the next logical question. "Silena, how do you know all this?"

There was some hesitation before the answer came. "I'm his spy."

…everything clicked into place and Annabeth wished she could go back to not knowing anything. "You're part of this?"

The accusation stung at Silena, but she grit her teeth and bore it. It was well deserved, after all. "Yes, Luke's just a courier. I'm the main spy."

"So you're the reason that every half-blood is in danger?" Annabeth asked, keeping her voice level.

The white light cast shadows on Silena's pretty face. "Yes."

Anger and irritation bubbled up inside her, but Annabeth repressed it. This might be her best way of getting any information. "So why are you doing this?"

"The Headmaster," Silena scowled. "He… he broke his promise."

Despite herself, Annabeth felt a stirring of pity as Silena's voice cracked and she choked on her words.

But the brunette gathered herself, swallowing down a sob and blinking away misty eyes. "That's why I need you, Annabeth. You're the only one who can fix things."

"And how exactly am I supposed to do that?"

"Luke."

"What?"

"The Headmaster trusts Luke," Silena started. She turned away from the blonde and climbed a few more steps, trusting Annabeth to follow. "He's the last turning point of the plan. Luke will listen to you. I know he will."

"So that's your plan? Just let me talk Luke out of endangering hundreds of students?"

"Look," the brunette said, not stopping. "I know I'm being horribly selfish, asking you to do something just to make me feel better about what _I've_ done. I know I'm just using you the same way Kronos was using me. But it's not something anyone else can do. Are you really going to pass this up because you're mad at me?"

Annabeth couldn't argue with that logic. Besides, she'd planned to search through the school from the beginning. "Fine, I'll do it."

"Good," Silena sighed, relief flowing through her. At least something was going to turn out alright today. Fiddling with her wrist, she held a glinting scythe charm out to Annabeth. "Here, take this."

"What is it?"

"It's my don't-attack-me-even-if-I'm-a-half-blood, charm," Silena replied, coming to a stop at a door marked 'main floor'. "As long as you're wearing that, you won't be questioned. It also doubles as a lock pick."

Annabeth watched with a calculating eye as Silena rattled off directions to the Headmaster's office where Luke would be. "What about you? You're not coming along?"

"There's only one scythe," Silena explained. "Without it, you're basically a sitting duck. Besides, I have somewhere to be."

"So you're just going to leave me here?"

Silena bit her lip and a horribly forced smile spread across her face. "I'm a horribly selfish person, remember?"

And with another metallic click, she was gone.

It would be a lie to say that Annabeth wasn't curious, but there were more pressing things at hand. She couldn't just stand there wondering about Silena's personal life, not while opportunity was nipping at her.

So pushing thoughts of her not so one-sided friend out of her mind, Annabeth crept out of the fire escape.

She blinked at the darkness that met her. After the bright lights of the fire escape, the unlit upper corridor was just one shade of black to her. Slowly closing the door behind her, Annabeth watched the little stream of light it let in narrow before disappearing.

_They must have turned the lights off so no one could see that they still have electricity, _she thought to herself as her eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Quietly, she made her way through the school, fingering her scythe charm and walking like she had purpose. Luckily, there weren't many students wandering around. There must have been an early dismissal. The Headmaster wouldn't have wanted kids around to ruin the plan. Annabeth stiffened at the thought. That meant that only the Headmaster's most trusted students would be roaming the halls.

By the time she got to the Headmaster's office, Annabeth's nerves were fried. Though apparently, she had no reason to worry. The few people who she had encountered only had to look at the charm on her wrist before carrying along.

Nervously, she slipped the pointed scythe into the keyhole. She turned it back and forth, mimicking Silena.

_Click_

"Annabeth?"

The blonde paled as she recognized the voice. She felt a familiar wave of annoyance wash her anxiety away. There was only one person who could irritate her enough to lose her cool.

"Percy," she started, staring at those sea-green eyes with frustration. "What the HELL are you doing here?"

* * *

Note: We're getting close to the end people. Any guesses as to how many chapters Notes has got left to give? Because each one has been planned out and is ready to be written :D


	23. Walking over my grave

Note: The title is an allusion to a Shakespeare quote that I wanted to incorporate somehow into this chapter. I couldn't find a seamless way to do it though, so here's a bone to all you Shakespeare buffs out there :)**  
**

* * *

**OUT, OUT, BRIEF CANDLE**

Luke felt like banging his head against a very pointed stick.

He'd begged the Headmaster to let him take Annabeth in. He'd gone through the trouble of dragging her here so she'd be out of harm's way. He'd even asked a favor from _Ethan_, of all people.

And what does she do?

Go prancing through the school 'disguised' as Silena Beauregard.

And who comes to make everything even more complicated?

Percy _goddamn_ Jackson.

He'd gotten reports from a number of students about the two of them wandering around the school looking for each other. It was kind of infuriating, really, seeing someone care so much about Annabeth…someone who wasn't him.

"You came _alone_?" he heard a familiar voice stress from somewhere up ahead. Annabeth sounded pissed. Well, at least she wasn't scared out of her wits. For some reason being kidnapped didn't have the same effect on her as it did other people.

Stalking towards the next corner, Luke strained his ears. This was bad, they'd found their way to the Headmaster's office. At least he'd told everyone else to evacuate. Now there'd be no one to interrupt whatever was going to happen.

"Yeah…," Percy replied nervously, probably recognizing that tone.

"Did you at least tell anyone you were coming?"

"Well I _think_ Malcolm knows…"

Annabeth let out a grunt of frustration. "How did you even get this far into the school?"

"I didn't see anyone on my way in."

"And if you had," Annabeth started. "What would you have done?"

"Punch them? I don't know," Percy answered, exasperated. "But that doesn't matter. Come on, we've got to get out of here."

Luke sighed, stepping out of the darkened corridor and into their view. This wasn't going anywhere. "Violence on school grounds? I don't think so."

Percy whipped around and scowled while Annabeth remained hunched over something, probably the door's keyhole. Luke almost chuckled. Did she really think the Headmaster would give one of his spies a key to his room? The thought turned sour quickly. Wasn't that all he was? A spy? Luke cleared his head with a light shake. No, thoughts like that helped nobody.

"You found out quick," Annabeth commented, not looking up from her work.

Ignoring the sea green glare he was getting, Luke scoffed. "Your tutee made it too easy."

Annabeth didn't reply, focused entirely on her task.

Percy on the other hand had nothing else to do but talk. "Look, I don't know what's up between the two of you right now, but can't you just let us go?"

"I can't," Luke interjected coolly. "The school's under lockdown."

"Argh," Percy groaned, balling his hands into fists. "What's _wrong_ with you? Don't you even care that you've just kidnapped someone?"

Luke took a moment to consider that question. "Frankly, no, I don't."

"Save it, Percy," Annebeth said calmly. "He has his reasons."

"Funny how you can say that without looking me in the eye," Luke noticed, regretting the words as soon as they'd left his lips. Damnit, that was just adding fuel to the fire.

She stopped tinkering with the lock and their little chunk of the hallway was suddenly silent without the soft clinks. Still crouched and facing the door, she sighed. "I can say that because I still believe in you. Why are you making it so hard for me to do that?"

"For someone so smart," Luke started, a painful smile stretching across his face. "You seem to have the wrong idea."

"Stop _doing_ that!" Annabeth screamed, swept away by a fit of frustration. She turned on her heel, staring at the scarred face she'd grown to love over the years. It didn't matter however much water they had under the bridge. They were family, and family was there for each other. No matter what. "You're not some heartless evil villain! You're not a shameless traitor!"

Luke grit his teeth. She'd always been too smart for her own good. "You're overthinking this, Annabeth. Why can't you just accept that I've changed."

"Because you haven't," she insisted stubbornly. "Because you can't have! Because, because…"

"Annabeth," Percy called, worried. It was so rattling to see her at a loss for words. He may not know anything about the two's history, but nothing was worth all this strife. "Annabeth, snap out of it. Just let it go."

"I can't," she told her tutee. Her words came out in a breathless jumble. "You don't understand, Percy. He's _Luke_. He _can't_ be doing this for no reason."

"And why not?" Luke asked quietly, all the fight gone from him. He couldn't keep this up for much longer. All the hateful things he'd been doing were just piling up. But what other option was there? This was all he could ever do to help his mom, and nothing would stop him from finishing the job.

"Well, well, well," a new voice chided. "What do we have here?"

Luke groaned. Of all the people to show up… "Ethan, what are you doing here?"

"Just checking up on you, Castellan," the half-blind boy replied nonchalantly. "You were taking a pretty long time to get rid of the pests."

"Annabeth is under our protection, Ethan," Luke reminded him. Something was…different about Ethan. Something that put Luke on edge.

"Well, that was assuming she kept her nose out of our business," Ethan drawled, lazily inching his hand behind his back. "She's trying to break into the Headmaster's office, _and_ she's brought another half-blood in. A half-blood that I think I've seen walking around on our turf lately."

_Confidence, _Luke thought to himself warily. That was it; Ethan was suddenly walking with an air of confidence. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to get rid of the intruders, obviously," Ethan said offhandedly, a wicked smile creeping up his countenance.

Luke felt his blood run cold as time slowed to a snail's pace. He watched a jet black object appear in Ethan's hand, mind reeling as it processed exactly what it was. He saw the gun's muzzle take aim, pointing directly at Annabeth. He felt himself moving forward, straining against time.

The gunshot echoed coldly in the hallway, and every noise was dwarfed by it.

Their frightened breaths and muttered curses were silenced by the enormity of what had just happened and what was still happening.

A dull thud sounded as four turned into three, and just like that, a single moment had ended a life.

~o~O~o~

May Castellan shivered as a chill crept up her spine.

"Is something wrong, Mrs. Castellan?" a nurse asked.

"It's nothing," May replied, waving off the concern. She wondered briefly about superstitions and old wives tales and gave a little chuckle. Clear blue eyes twinkling for the first time in a long time, she added. "Someone must be walking over my grave."

* * *

Note: Just the epilogue after this, guys.


	24. Someone else's story

Note: Well here we are, guys. I'll start you off with a Hamlet quote I happen to love.

* * *

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below,

Words without thoughts never to heaven go"

_**LOCAL TEEN IS SHOT TO DEATH ON CAMPUS**_

_Last Saturday, sixteen year old Luke Castellan was shot by classmate Ethan Nakamura on their school grounds at Lord Cronus Institution. Nakamura had brought in a semi-automatic pistol with one round loaded into it. In a later interview, Nakamura stated that the gun was for "showing off" to the resident headmaster, Oras Titanus._

_Nakamura is currently being detained and is awaiting arraignment. Titanus shares his student's predicament due to the implications he has caused at CHB, a neighboring school that was attacked the same day of the shooting. Dozens of thugs, believed to have been called together by Titanus, had stormed the school in hopes that the children's parents would pay a hefty ransom sum. With all the chaos at CHB, police had no time or resources to aid the injured Castellan at Lord Cronus Institution._

_(continued on p.25)_

_~o~O~o~_

The moment they walked into the small ceremony, all eyes were on them. Besides Ethan, Percy and Annabeth had been the only ones to witness Luke's final moments.

They gave their respects in awkward silence. The imposing casket loomed in front of them, perched on a small chapel altar. Percy closed his eyes and pretended to mourn, feeling like an outsider looking in. Cracking an eye open, he peered at Annabeth standing beside him. Her arms hung limply, clasped together with trembling fingers.

Looking at her, so broken and defeated, Percy was glad he'd offered to come.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, nudging her lightly.

She jumped a bit, as if she'd forgotten he was there. Not turning to face him, she nodded, eyes shut tight.

"Annabeth," a hoarse voice cried out before any reply could be made. It grew louder as its owner rushed towards them. "ANNABETH!"

Percy stared in shock at the mess of a person that was making its way towards them. This was the first time he'd seen her out of her uniform, and God above, she looked awful. Dark circles sagged from bloodshot eyes. Clothes hung limply on her, pitch black against her pale skin. She stormed closer, her electric blue eyes brimming with emotion.

"Thalia," Annabeth squeaked.

That was all the blonde could get out before she was attacked by the emotional hurricane that was Thalia Grace.

"You were there," Thalia mumbled, gripping Annabeth by the shoulders. "You were fucking THERE!"

"Hey," Percy cautioned. "Don't blame it all on her."

"Stay out of this, Jackson," the Hunter barked. "She was _there_, and she did _nothing._"

"You're right, Thalia," Annabeth croaked, voice hoarse. "I was there, and I couldn't save him."

Thalia's grip slackened at such a frank confession. She'd expected more of a fight.

Annabeth took a breath before she continued, "I couldn't save him because he saved me."

"Why was it _his_ job to save _you_?" Thalia asked, shoulders heaving with the effort of holding back a scream. "He didn't have to do anything. He didn't have to be the hero…"

She slunk to her knees, dragging Annabeth down with her. The two sat huddled together, lost in their thoughts and unable to speak. A soft clicking wrenched them out of their stupor. Annabeth looked up, recognizing the sound of a wheelchair and expecting Chiron, and paled.

"Excuse me," May Castellan said, peering questioningly at them. "Are you three here to see Luke?"

"Yes," Annabeth managed to say, praying for once that Luke's mother wasn't lucid. She didn't think she could face Mrs. Castellan if she knew what has happening. "Yes we are."

"Thank you," May smiled. "He was such a good boy. Shame no one else could come."

They stayed there, caught in an awkward impasse, until May's twinkling eyes broke Annabeth down.

"I'm sorry," the blonde blurted out. "I'm sorry he's gone."

"Oh, don't fret," the adult shushed. "Anything anyone does has reason. Luke decided by himself that he would do this for me. I wish he hadn't, but I respect what he's done. Please don't hate him, I know a lot of people do right now…"

The words struck a chord somewhere deep in Annabeth, and she stood with a surge of energy. "I would _never_ hate him!"

Percy stepped in to calm his tutor down, but something in Mrs. Castellan's words caught his attention. "Excuse me, ma'am, but did you say that Luke did it for you?"

"They tell me that I was sick," May started, a sad smile gracing her lips. "And that he made me better."

"B-but, there's no cure for Alzheimer's," Annabeth mumbled as Percy helped her up.

"Luke managed, like he always had," May replied, rolling herself closer to the trio. "Why don't the two of you go out for a breath of fresh air? Your friend here seems to need some peace and quiet."

Thalia stared up at the woman who she had seen so lost before. There was nothing clouded about May's eyes now. There was no confusion, no all-consuming grief. Just…love. Love for her life and the life that had been lost.

It had been a long time since Thalia had last cried. After losing her brother, she had never really had anyone to cry about. But there, on a small altar in a shabby chapel off the edge of New York, she sobbed.

Annabeth tried to reach for her friend, to help, to console. But Percy held her back.

"What can you do for her, Annabeth? You're hurting just as bad."

"No," Annabeth choked out, tears beginning to stain her cheeks. "She…she loved him more. She's hurting the most."

"Don't worry," May told the two with a dismissive wave. "I've got this covered."

"Thanks," Percy said, half-dragging Annabeth.

A blast of cold air washed over them as they stepped out. Percy led his tutor to a weathered old bench, snow crunching beneath their feet, and forced her to sit.

So they sat with the wind nipping at their flushed faces and their hands stuffed into their coat pockets, thinking about what the hell was going to happen from now on.

Percy stared at the blue sky above, watching smoke spiral upwards from somewhere off in the distance. It drifted further and further up, bleeding into the snow-white clouds around it. A beautiful day for such a melancholy occasion.

"They're cremating him, you know," Annabeth said, following Percy's line of sight. "Burning him so that nothing's really left except for some dust and smoke."

Percy didn't know what to say. Having never been to a funeral before, he wasn't even sure if all this drama was normal. Sighing, he went with the obvious.

"So, you never really answered. Are you okay?"

"I don't know, Percy," she replied, eyes still glued on the thinning trail of smoke. "And I really, really, hate not knowing…"

Percy stared at his tutor in shock. In all the time he had known her, this was the first time she'd ever admitted to being in the dark about something. And it was seeing her like this, so vulnerable to everything around her, that finally shifted everything into perspective.

His eyes memorized how her shoulders heaved with repressed sobs, how her cheeks glistened with crisscrossing tear tracks. The realization hit him like a bullet. Percy never wanted to see her so crushed and vulnerable ever again. And the only way to make sure of that was to never leave her side.

The idea of love crossed his mind, but Percy brushed it away. He didn't really know love. The only person he had ever loved was his mom, and this was something different. Maybe something even better.

Annabeth wiped teary eyes on her sleeve, trying to clear her head as the smoke disappeared. She had to face the facts. Luke was gone and was never coming back. There weren't many people that really mattered in her life, and the loss of one was like having a piece gone missing. Yet among those people, the only person who could console her was Percy. Annabeth didn't know why, or how, but she was sure that to get through anything more that might happen, she'd need Percy.

They turned to each other at the exact same moment, their eyes meeting.

It's happened so many times before, but now, it's different.

They sat together, reveling in the gravity of their realization, not wanting to break whatever chain reaction had just been started.

Percy could admit that he knew nothing about love, but hey, there's a first time for everything.

Annabeth knew that loving someone so soon after Luke was stupid, but she had to confess, love was stupid.

Slowly, their hands inched closer together, fingers barely touching.

It's tiny and innocent, but it's the first step of many, and right now, it's the only one they can take.

~o~O~o~

**SOMETIMES TO GET YOUR HAPPY ENDING, YOU HAVE TO END SOMEONE ELSE'S STORY**

* * *

Note: So I had a bit of a reverse order there, with the chapter title coming in last, because I wanted to leave you with that sentence :)

*****sniff* So Notes draws to a close. I know it isn't much for the hardcore Percabeth-ers out there, but this was the plan from the start, a nice soft romance.

And for those who wish Notes wouldn't be over (myself included), don't take this story off your alerts just yet! I'll have special "Post-it" chapters following this one, detailing some minor events I brushed over during the course of this story. (Like the Rachel scandal, that Tratie way back in chapter 5 or something, hospital scenes, Castellan family drama, etc.

Thanks for sticking with me guys, I can't tell you how much it means :)


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